Struthof

Struthof is a variation of the commune of Natzwiller in the south-west of the Département of the Low-Rhine.

The place remained sadly celebrates to have accommodated only the Concentration camp installed by the Nazi S on the territory French, the the Alsace-Moselle being then annexed to the Third Reich.

Operations

The camp is operational May 21st 1941 until its evacuation by the S in September 1944. The camp is released by the American the November 23rd 1944. It includes/understands also tens of kommandos, camp of work appendices.

The full number of prisoners is estimated at 40.000, originating in various countries like the Poland, the Soviet Union, the France, the Netherlands, the Germany and the Norway. The camp was mainly a camp of work but it also contained a Gas chamber and a Crematorium.

As the female population of the camp was very weak, only seven women S were useful in the camp (whereas the men were 600), and fifteen in the additional camps. Their main role was to keep the rare women who came to the camp for medical experiments or to be carried out. The camp thus involved women S who went later in the camps of Geisenheim and of Geislingen in the west of the Germany.

Intensive work, the Malnutrition and the ill treatments by the guards S caused approximately 25.000 dead. Four of them were women carried out together the July 6th 1944. Diana Rowden, Vera Leigh, Andree Borrel and Sonya Olschanezky were agents of the Executive Special Operations, a British Secret service .

Pierre Seel, only French deportee for Homosexuality to have dared to carry testimony, was off-set in the camp of Struthof in May 1941, at the 17 years age. In 1994, it published a account-testimony entitled Me Pierre Seel, deportee homosexual (Calmann-Levy), remained without equivalent in France. It tells the tortures endured in Struthof there. It also described there the setting with died of its first love, OJ, 18 years, devoured alive by dogs in front of the prisoners of Struthof. Among the famous prisoners, one notes the Slovenien writer Boris Pahor.

A Gas chamber was used from August 11th to 19th 1943. 57 men and 30 women, all Jews, are sent of Birkenau to be assassinated with hydrocyanic salts there with an aim of having their skeleton for the anatomical Institute of Strasbourg. This institute was then directed by the SS-Hauptsturmführer , the professor August Hirt. A person having been carried out by ball for rebellion, they are 86 people who were killed by Joseph Kramer in the below arranged gas chamber Struthof. The gas chamber was used thereafter for 15 experiments on the gas Phosgène by the virologist Otto Bickenbach on ordinary prisoners and Gypsies.

In the night of the August 31st at September 1st, 1944, 108 resistant of the movement Alliance is carried out of a ball in the nape of the neck.

After its evacuation by the S, the camp becomes a provisional center of detention for collaborator prisoners of war and . Starting from 1946, it fills of condemned young people of the courts of justice, all old of less than 21 years. Approximately 2000 people pile up there, old Légion of the French volunteers, Division Charlemagne, French Popular party, popular national Rassemblement, Parti francist, auxiliaries of the Gestapo and wire of dignitaries of the Régime of Vichy and collaboration. Among them, one can find Pierre Sidos, future creator of the movements of Extrême right-hand side Jeune Nation, Occident and French Œuvre.

Posterior lawsuits with the war

We know the name of the seven women who were useful in the camp It acts of Maria Aichele, Berta Bommer, Maria Luise Merkle, Elisabeth Peschke, Else Rueck, Kreszenzia Ruf (which was also used for Geislingen) and Anna Zengerle, which was used like Aufseherin for Ravensbrück.

Fritz Hartjenstein died in prison before its sentence is carried out. The following sentences were marked the October 11th 1946:

  • Franz Berg, capital punishment (carried out)
  • Kurt Geigling, ten years of imprisonment
  • Fritz Hartjenstein (Commander), capital punishment (deceased before the execution of the sentence)
  • Josef Muth, fifteen years of imprisonment
  • Peter Straub, capital punishment (carried out)
  • Magnus Wochner, ten years of imprisonment

Joseph Kramer, commander SS of the camp, was made prisoner by the British with Bergen-Belsen, concentration camp located in Germany, from which it ensured the command after the evacuation of Struthof; condemned to death, it was hung in Lunebourg, in 1945.

The " recyclage" camp

  • 1949 the management of the site is placed under the supervision of the ministry for the War veterans and War victims.

  • 1950 the site of the camp is classified historic building
  • 1951 the building of the gas chamber is classified historic building
  • 1954 the huts which threaten to crumble are destroyed except for four of them located in top and bottom of the site:
in top, the hut n° 1 and the hut of the kitchens; in bottom, the hut of the crematorium and the hut of the cellular block.
  • July 23rd 1960, the Memorial with the martyrs and hero of the deportation, as well as the necropolis main road are inaugurated by the President of the Republic, the general de Gaulle.
  • June 27th 1963 inauguration of the museum of the deportation of Natzweiler-Struthof, arranged in the hut n°1 by the Ministry for the War veterans.
  • night of the May 12th to the May 13rd 1976 total destruction of the museum by a case of arson perpetrated by negationnists néo-Nazis; it will be rebuilt according to the plans of origin.
  • November 3rd 2005, at the time of the 60e birthday of the release of the camp, the President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, inaugurates on the site of Natzweiler-Struthof, the European Center of resistant off-set.

List kommandos of Natzweiler

Many a kommandos (kind of camp of work appendices) depended on Natzweiler-Struthof. They were located both in Alsace and in Germany. The Camp of Thil being located in France. With the autumn 1944, there were approximately 7.000 prisoners with the principal camp and more 20  000 in the kommandos.

  1. Asbach,

  2. Audun-le-Tiche,
  3. Auerbach,
  4. Bad Rappenau,
  5. Baden Baden,
  6. Baden Oos,
  7. Balingen,
  8. Bernhausen,
  9. Bensheim,
  10. Binau,
  11. Bisingen,
  12. Brüttig,
  13. Calw,
  14. Cernay (Sennheim),
  15. Colmar,
  16. Darmstadt,
  17. Daudenzell,
  18. Dautmergen,
  19. Dorlisheim,
  20. Dormettingen,
  21. Echterdingen,
  22. Ellwangen,
  23. Ensingen,
  24. Frommern,
  25. Geisenheim,
  26. Geislingen year der Steige,
  27. Large-Sachsenheim,
  28. Hailfingen,
  29. Haslach,
  30. Hayange,
  31. Heidenheim,
  32. Heilbronn,
  33. Heppenheim,
  34. Hessental,
  35. Iffezheim,
  36. Katzbach,
  37. Kochendorf,
  38. Leonberg,
  39. Mosbach,
  40. Mulhouse,
  41. Metz,
  42. Neckarbischofsheim,
  43. Neckarelz (2 camps)
  44. Neckargartach,
  45. Neckargerach,
  46. Neckarzimmern,
  47. Neunkirchen,
  48. Nuttenbach,
  49. Obernai (Oberehnheim),
  50. Obrigheim,
  51. Offenburg,
  52. Peltre,
  53. Rastatt,
  54. Rothau,
  55. Schwäbisch Hall,
  56. Holy-Marie-with-Mines (Markirch),
  57. Sandweier,
  58. Sandhofen,
  59. Schömberg,
  60. Schörzingen,
  61. Schwindratzheim,
  62. Spaichingen,
  63. Strasbourg,
  64. Tailfingen,
  65. Thil,
  66. Treis,
  67. Unterriexingen,
  68. Urbès ,
  69. Vaihingen,
  70. Unterriexingen,
  71. Walldorf,
  72. Wasseralfingen,
  73. Zepfenhahn
  74. Zuffenhausen

Internal bond

  • Camp of Thil
  • Camp of rehabilitation of Vorbrück-Schirmeck, which was in the vicinity.

External bonds

  • Official site of Struthof. The old concentration camp of Natzweiler in Alsace.
  • the camp on the site of '' CRDP of Champagne-Ardenne ''
  • Page devoted to the camp of Struthof-Natzweiler
  • Page devoted to the camp of Struthof on the site Ways of memory

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