Advertisement
Published: January 17th 2008
Edit Blog Post
We just spent the last 5 days in Eastern Germany. We’re still on our WWII journey, although we didn’t manage to make to Bastogne, Belgium after all. This time of year, many of the outdoor sites are closed, and that combined with our lingering flu just made it seem like a bad idea to go tramping around the forest in Belgium in the dead of winter to see the Battle of the Bulge site.
However, we did make it to Nordhausen, Germany to see the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp. We came here trying to retrace some of the steps my Grandpa’s tank battalion. He was in the 759th light tank battalion, and while he didn’t go into very much detail (it was very hard for him to have to relive what he experienced), we do know that his unit participated in the liberation of a concentration camp near the town of Nordhausen. I don’t think my Grandpa knew the exact name of the camp, and while those of you reading this may think that it couldn’t possibly be that hard to identify the concentration camp near Nordhausen, it actually isn’t that simple. Dora-Mittelbau was the primary camp, but there were 40
sub-camps located around it within a relatively close distance. It was very hard to be able to find out much information, because we speak absolutely no German, and at least in this part of Germany, there are very few people that speak English. It sounds like Dora-Mittelbau is the only remaining camp that you can visit, and it turned out to be incredibly fascinating. We also had a really nice guide named Felix who arranged for us to see a private video the museum had archived showing the American troops who liberated the camp, so that was a nice thing for him to do.
We didn’t know it when we arrived, but Dora-Mittelbau was the labor camp where the manufacturing of the V-2 rockets was transferred to after the 3 primary facilities were bombed and destroyed. Its location was chosen because it had a large, elaborate mining tunnel system that was largely complete, and it allowed for an underground, protected location for the rocket production. Later, V-1 bombs and airplane engines were made there as well. The size and extensiveness of these tunnels was startling to see, and although the camp itself is almost completely destroyed with the exception
of the crematorium and a couple of other buildings, we were able to visit a small section of the tunnel system. The majority of prisoners didn’t work in weapons production, but rather in building infrastructure (roads, railways, camps, etc). This camp was only in existence about 2 years, from 1943 to 1945, but for those that were prisoners here, it had to be hell. This was not considered an extermination camp, but it was a hard labor camp, and many of the prisoners brought here were worked and starved to death. Of the approximately 70,000 prisoners who were sent to Nordhausen, about 20,000 died there. The first prisoners had to live in the tunnels before an above ground barracks facility was built. The Nazi’s crammed 10,000 people into 4 underground chambers, stacking the bunks 4 people high. Prisoners were forced to work 12 hour shifts, so 5,000 people at all times were in these overcrowded bunk chambers, and bathing wasn’t possible. Add to that inadequate toilet facilities and disease, 80 degree constant temperature and 90 percent humidity in the tunnels, and the conditions were miserable. The little food that was provided was often rotten as well. The vast majority of
the prisoners at Dora-Mittelbau were political prisoners, people who opposed the Nazi regime. Eventually, a crematorium was built on site, and there is a hillside that is the final resting place for thousands of people. One of the saddest things to see was the memorial plaques that were placed inside the crematorium next to the ovens…the families of the dead had nowhere else to remember their loved ones. Sadly, even when the camp and its sub-camps were liberated, it was only a few hundred survivors that remained there, as was the case with many camps. Most of the prisoners were sent on death marches or to other camps that hadn’t been liberated yet. This place was not only a testament to the cruelty of the Nazi’s toward other human beings, but also of the insanity of “total war” and their insistence to continue fighting, killing and producing weapons, even when they knew the war was lost.
Our next stop was Nuremburg, the city where the Nazi’s held its gigantic Nazi Party Rallies. Many of the sites were never completed, and those that were have been damaged over time and through neglect, but it was still amazing to see the
size and scale of these rally centers. The Zeppelin Field was enormous, and this is the site of the famous footage we’ve all seen of the Nazi parades and rallies with the huge Swastika and Eagle emblem in the backdrop of Hitler’s speaking podium. These buildings and rally fields were the size of the monuments in Rome, and you can clearly see that is what Hitler envisioned his empire to be like. The museum inside the huge Congress building was really interesting, showing Hitler’s rise to power, as well as interviews with German people who lived through the fanaticism of the Nazi party. It does become a little more understandable, especially when it was the very young who were indoctrinated with their political and social system from such a young age, to see how an entire nation got swept up in the insanity. It seemed like Beatles mania, starring Hitler as the rock star, meets massive social and economic reforms to gain the loyalty of the masses, peppered with injections of fear to keep the opposition afraid and unable to act. It really was about abolishing the thinking, rational individual and instead replacing it with one gigantic, unstoppable, mob mentality.
One of the men interviewed said the party rallies were like a battery that charged everyone up for the year, and gave the people what they needed to not think for themselves about what was happening. Seeing these sites in person, it forces you to think about the world, humanity and war in a whole different way, especially in light of all of the conflicts, problems and dangerous leaders in our world now. If only there were a way that every person could see and experience these places and others like them…perhaps keeping these terrible memories alive in a tangible way would prevent humankind from continuing to torment itself.
We’re in Krakow, Poland, and we’ll be seeing Auschwitz tomorrow, so the next blog will probably be heavy too, considering what happened there.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.188s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 59; dbt: 0.0595s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Carl
non-member comment
Seeking information
Hi, My father, Carl L. Olsen, was a member of the 759th Light Tank Battalion. I am seeking information. My father was one of many WWII Vets who never talked about their experience in war. Your grandfather and my father must have know each other.