NEUENGAMME CAMP ESTABLISHED
December 13, 1938
The SS establishes the Neuengamme camp as a subcamp of Sachsenhausen, south of Hamburg in northern Germany. The SS took over a defunct brick works at Neuengamme and established the concentration camp there with plans to reopen and modernize the brick works using concentration camp labor. The SS uses the German Earth and Stone Works Corporation as a front for SS operations at Neuengamme and brings about 100 prisoners from Sachsenhausen to the site to begin construction of the camp. PRISONERS USED IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
January 23, 1940
Oswald Pohl, head of the SS Economic-Administrative Main Office, visits Hamburg. He meets with the city administration to negotiate the employment of concentration camp prisoners in city projects. Hamburg city administrators agree to pay the SS more than one million reichsmarks for the use of prisoner forced labor from Neuengamme for construction projects. These projects include the regulation of flooding on the Elbe river, the expansion of the brick works at Neuengamme, and the construction of the Dove-Elbe canal in northern Germany. RECLASSIFICATION AS CONCENTRATION CAMP
June 4, 1940
The Reich Security Main Office in Berlin informs all Security Police offices that Neuengamme is now an independent concentration camp and gives them the address of the camp. The Security Police may now deport prisoners directly to Neuengamme. At this time, the camp has more than 1,100 prisoners. Little more than a year later, by July 1, 1941, the camp's prisoner population will have increased by about five times to more than 5,000. CAMP QUARANTINED DUE TO TYPHUS OUTBREAK
December 31, 1941
To prevent the spread of a typhus epidemic, the SS orders a quarantine of Neuengamme and forbids prisoners to leave the camp. Typhus is a continuing problem at Neuengamme due to primitive sanitary conditions and the chronic overcrowding of the camp. More than a thousand prisoners die during this outbreak. The quarantine will remain in effect until March 31, 1942. CREMATORIUM CONSTRUCTED
April 1, 1942
The SS completes construction of a crematorium at Neuengamme. Bodies of prisoners who died in the camp had usually been taken to Hamburg for cremation. Now the bodies are cremated in the camp itself and the ashes are spread in the camp gardens. The SS will later construct a second crematorium as the death rate among prisoners continues to increase. SATELLITE CAMP ESTABLISHED
October 18, 1942
The SS establishes the Druette concentration camp in the town of Watenstedt-Salzgitter, near Brunswick. It is one of the first and largest satellite camps of Neuengamme. The camp is to provide forced laborers for an armaments factory, the Hermann Goering Works. As the labor shortage worsens in Germany during the war, the SS expands the use of concentration camp prisoners in armaments production. More than 3,000 male concentration camp prisoners from the Neuengamme camp will work 12-hour shifts at the armaments factory as forced laborers in the manufacture of ammunition for Germany's air defense guns and bombs for Germany's air force. PRISONERS KILLED IN AIR ATTACK
April 17, 1943
Six Neuengamme camp prisoners die during an Allied air raid on the nearby city of Bremen. Neuengamme camp authorities had established a satellite camp in Bremen in October 1942; they assigned 700 prisoners from Neuengamme to clean up bomb damage, and to remove unexploded munitions from the debris caused during air raids. The SS does not permit prisoners to use air raid shelters during Allied air attacks on German cities. MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED ON PRISONERS
December 20, 1944
Heinrich Himmler, SS leader and chief of German police, receives a report on Dr. Ludwig-Werner Haase's medical experiments in Neuengamme. Dr. Haase tested a new water filter by adding 100 times the safe dose of arsenic to water. He then filtered the water using the new machine, and gave it to more than 150 prisoners over a 13-day period. While the camp doctor determined that no prisoner was harmed, he concluded that the heavy doses involved in the test would probably cause injury to the prisoners in the long term. The tests will continue in January 1945. SS REPORTS PRISONER STATISTICS
January 15, 1945
The SS reports that there are about 50,000 prisoners in the Neuengamme concentration camp system, including almost 10,000 women. The Neuengamme camp system includes about 60 subcamps spread over northwestern Germany, with more than 20 camps in Hamburg alone. PRISONERS TURNED OVER TO SWEDEN
April 2, 1945
Heinrich Himmler agrees that Scandinavian prisoners, who had been transferred to the Neuengamme concentration camp in anticipation of the agreement, can be turned over to Sweden. Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte, a representative of the Swedish Red Cross, meets with Himmler to discuss the transfer of prisoners to Swedish care. Concerned that the SS might massacre prisoners rather than release them at the end of the war, Sweden wishes to secure the safety of Scandinavian prisoners. In all, the SS will turn about 7,000 Scandinavian prisoners over to the Swedes. More than 400 Danish Jews, who had been interned in Theresienstadt, will be among the last to be transferred to Sweden. PRISONER DEATH RATES
April 10, 1945
The death register at Neuengamme indicates that about 40,000 prisoners have died in the camp by this date. Thousands more will die before the liberation of the camp in May 1945. In all, more than 50,000 prisoners, almost half of all those imprisoned in the camp during its existence, die in Neuengamme before liberation. GERMAN RESISTANCE MEMBERS SHOT
April 20, 1945
The Gestapo (secret state police) in Hamburg brings more than 70 members of the German resistance, including 13 women, to the Neuengamme concentration camp for execution. The SS holds them under special guard and shoots them over the next two days. EXECUTION OF CHILDREN
April 20, 1945
Less than two weeks before the end of the war, SS men hang 20 children (10 boys and 10 girls) in the cellar of a school on Bullenhuser Damm in Hamburg. The hanging is an attempt to cover up SS involvement in medical experiments at Neuengamme. The children had been subjected to tuberculosis experiments conducted by SS doctors on concentration camp prisoners in Neuengamme. EVACUATION OF NEUENGAMME
April 29, 1945
As British forces approach the Neuengamme camp, the SS begins the evacuation of the camp. They also burn the records from the camp offices. About 10,000 prisoners are forced to begin a death march in the direction of Luebeck in northern Germany. Thousands of other prisoners have already been transferred to the nearby Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. ALLIES BOMB SHIPS WITH PRISONERS ABOARD
May 3, 1945
British fighter-bombers attack two ships, the "Cap Arcona" and "Thielbek," moored in a small bay near Hamburg. The Allied pilots were not aware that the SS had forced prisoners onto both ships during the evacuation from the Neuengamme concentration camp. The "Thielbek," carrying about 2,000 prisoners, sinks quickly. The "Cap Arcona," carrying more than 4,500 prisoners, burns and capsizes during the attack. Only about 600 prisoners from both ships survive. LIBERATION OF NEUENGAMME
May 4, 1945
British forces liberate the Neuengamme concentration camp. |
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