Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
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The Mass Murder Of Gardelegen
Although the end is in sight for all, the Nazi killing machine continues unabated:
On April 13, 1945, Germans murdered more than 1,000 concentration camp prisoners in the "Isenschnibber Feldscheune" near the town of Gardelegen...:
The prisoners are the last survivors of the camps around the underground rocket factory "Mittelbau Dora" in Thuringia. They came from Poland, the Soviet Union, France, Hungary, Belgium, Germany, Italy, former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Spain and Mexico.
In Wernigerode, the prisoners were crammed into goods wagons and transported further north by train. Another group of around 600 sick prisoners from the Hanover-Stöcken concentration camp are loaded directly into freight cars that are to be taken to Bergen-Belsen.
After several days of driving, the transport trains with the concentration camp prisoners from Hanover and the Harz mountains in the Gardelegen area - in Mieste, Zienau, Bergfriede and Letzlingen - come to a standstill.
Due to destroyed rail systems, defective locomotives and the approaching front, the original goals could no longer be achieved. As a result of this situation, there were a total of around 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners in the region.
SS Hauptscharführer Erhard Brauny and other concentration camp guards, the Wehrmacht and the Volkssturm force the survivors of the murderous transports on foot on death marches in different directions. Some of the prisoners eventually come to Gardelegen to the Remont School, a barracks for cavalry training.
That day there were between 1050 and 1100 prisoners. Many prisoners were murdered along the marching routes, and some managed to escape.
The NSdAP district leader Gerhard Thiele ...
... orders the murder of the prisoners in Gardelegen.
1,050 prisoners are then locked up in the "Isenschibber Feldscheune" near Gardelegen; the floor of the building is covered with straw that has previously been soaked with petrol.
The Germans then set fire to the straw. However, the prisoners are twice able to smother the fire with clothing, sacks and blankets.
After that, the Germans shoot into the barn to kill the occupants. Machine guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, signal ammunition and fluorescent grenades are used as murder tools. Then the inside of the stone barn is set on fire again with petrol - to cover up the traces of the deeds.
The killers were functionaries of the local NSDAP, SA men, members of the SS and Waffen-SS, soldiers of the Luftwaffe and the local cavalry school, members of a paratrooper unit, police forces, members of the Hitler Youth, members of the storm men.
A number of relatives also volunteered to take part in the murder campaign!
This is what the scene will look like as US troops will find it on April 22, 1945...:
The murdered are buried in a cemetery at the scene of the crime ...
... who both in the GDR...
... as well as today is a memorial...:
SS-Hauptscharführer Brauny is later captured by the US military police...
... sentenced to death...
... later commuted to "life imprisonment" and died of leukemia in Landsberg Prison on June 6, 1950.
Gerhard Thiele, who ordered the mass murder, managed to go into hiding. Under the false name "Gerhard Lindemann" completely undisturbed until his death on June 30, 1994 in Düsseldorf.
It was only in 1997, three years after his death, that his true identity could be determined after files from the GDR public prosecutor's office in Magdeburg, where investigations had unfortunately been carried out against him in the 1960s without success, appeared.
Note: Maybe this article might again "too political" or even "too socialistic" for some, because I call "murder" "murder", regardless of when and by whom - I ask for your indulgence .
Although the end is in sight for all, the Nazi killing machine continues unabated:
On April 13, 1945, Germans murdered more than 1,000 concentration camp prisoners in the "Isenschnibber Feldscheune" near the town of Gardelegen...:
The prisoners are the last survivors of the camps around the underground rocket factory "Mittelbau Dora" in Thuringia. They came from Poland, the Soviet Union, France, Hungary, Belgium, Germany, Italy, former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Spain and Mexico.
In Wernigerode, the prisoners were crammed into goods wagons and transported further north by train. Another group of around 600 sick prisoners from the Hanover-Stöcken concentration camp are loaded directly into freight cars that are to be taken to Bergen-Belsen.
After several days of driving, the transport trains with the concentration camp prisoners from Hanover and the Harz mountains in the Gardelegen area - in Mieste, Zienau, Bergfriede and Letzlingen - come to a standstill.
Due to destroyed rail systems, defective locomotives and the approaching front, the original goals could no longer be achieved. As a result of this situation, there were a total of around 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners in the region.
SS Hauptscharführer Erhard Brauny and other concentration camp guards, the Wehrmacht and the Volkssturm force the survivors of the murderous transports on foot on death marches in different directions. Some of the prisoners eventually come to Gardelegen to the Remont School, a barracks for cavalry training.
That day there were between 1050 and 1100 prisoners. Many prisoners were murdered along the marching routes, and some managed to escape.
The NSdAP district leader Gerhard Thiele ...
... orders the murder of the prisoners in Gardelegen.
1,050 prisoners are then locked up in the "Isenschibber Feldscheune" near Gardelegen; the floor of the building is covered with straw that has previously been soaked with petrol.
The Germans then set fire to the straw. However, the prisoners are twice able to smother the fire with clothing, sacks and blankets.
After that, the Germans shoot into the barn to kill the occupants. Machine guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, signal ammunition and fluorescent grenades are used as murder tools. Then the inside of the stone barn is set on fire again with petrol - to cover up the traces of the deeds.
The killers were functionaries of the local NSDAP, SA men, members of the SS and Waffen-SS, soldiers of the Luftwaffe and the local cavalry school, members of a paratrooper unit, police forces, members of the Hitler Youth, members of the storm men.
A number of relatives also volunteered to take part in the murder campaign!
This is what the scene will look like as US troops will find it on April 22, 1945...:
The murdered are buried in a cemetery at the scene of the crime ...
... who both in the GDR...
... as well as today is a memorial...:
SS-Hauptscharführer Brauny is later captured by the US military police...
... sentenced to death...
... later commuted to "life imprisonment" and died of leukemia in Landsberg Prison on June 6, 1950.
Gerhard Thiele, who ordered the mass murder, managed to go into hiding. Under the false name "Gerhard Lindemann" completely undisturbed until his death on June 30, 1994 in Düsseldorf.
It was only in 1997, three years after his death, that his true identity could be determined after files from the GDR public prosecutor's office in Magdeburg, where investigations had unfortunately been carried out against him in the 1960s without success, appeared.
Note: Maybe this article might again "too political" or even "too socialistic" for some, because I call "murder" "murder", regardless of when and by whom - I ask for your indulgence .
