Wöbbelin

To me, it is almost a sacrilege to even add comments to these pictures of the Wöbbelin Concentration Camp.  As a German, I have been appalled by the actions of my countrymen.  Lots of excuses but no sound reasons for what they did, save for as a group, they abandoned their Lutheran upbringing to cause chaos and destruction on a scale I hope to never encounter again in my lifetime.

I post these in hopes that by knowing what happened, you too will strive to do what you can to see that politicians are never again trusted with sufficient power to ever repeat what was done to Europe from 1933 to 1948.

*****

On May 2, 1945, the 8th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne Division encountered Wöbbelin. Living conditions in the camp when the U.S. 8th Infantry and the 82nd Airborne arrived were deplorable. There was little food or water and some prisoners had resorted to cannibalism. When the units arrived, they found about 1,000 inmates dead in the camp. In the aftermath, the U.S. Army ordered the townspeople in Ludwigslust to visit the camp and bury the dead.

 

200 Found Dead in 1 Barracks

The Dead and the Dying Found Together

Compulsory Viewing

On May 7, 1945, the 82nd Airborne Division conducted funeral services for 200 inmates in the town of Ludwigslust. Attending the ceremony were citizens of Ludwigslust, captured German officers, and several hundred members of the airborne division. The U.S. Army chaplain at the service delivered a eulogy stating that:

    "The crimes here committed in the name of the German people and by their acquiescence were minor compared to those to be found in concentration camps elsewhere in Germany. Here there were no gas chambers, no crematoria; these men of Holland, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France were simply allowed to starve to death. Within four miles of your comfortable homes 4,000 men were forced to live like animals, deprived even of the food you would give to your dogs. In three weeks 1,000 of these men were starved to death; 800 of them were buried in pits in the nearby woods. These 200 who lie before us in these graves were found piled four and five feet high in one building and lying with the sick and dying in other buildings."

The Funeral Service

The 200 Graves

The death register at Neuengamme indicates that about 40,000 prisoners died in the camp by April 10, 1945. Perhaps as many as 15,000 more died in the camp in the following week and during the course of the evacuation. In all, more than 50,000 prisoners, almost half of all those imprisoned in the camp complex during its existence, died.

Beds made of barbed wire, rags and straw

Forced labor

The Survivors.....

This is the heritage, the legacy, left to those of us whom are the next generation of Germans.  Yeah, try growing up as a child in a country destroyed by war, a heritage of racism and an occupation force willing to make your life miserable because your forefathers deserved execution.   Yeah, as a child, it was galling.