Niederhagen (Wewelsburg) Concentration Camp

The collection contains among others:

Witness statements, sketches of the building structure, list of costs of the “Gesellschaft zur Förderung und Pflege deutscher Kulturdenkmäler e. V. ” (society for the funding and protection of German cultural monuments), reports, financing, prisoner costs, report on the death books of Wewelsburg civil records registry office, death books and “secondary death books” of Wewelsburg civil records registry office with entries on deceased prisoners 1940-1943, listing of names of deceased prisoners of Concentration Camp Niederhagen in Wewelsburg who were buried in "Sennefriedhof" in Bielefeld - post-war compilation – dates of death: 2.4.42 - 29.10.42, transport lists: departures from CC Niederhagen-Wewelsburg to CC Dachau from 06.08.42. and CC Buchenwald from 13.04.43 & 03.05.43, social-insurance matters, prisoner register forms, personal information registration cards, personal effects cards and registers, death documents

History of Concentration Camp Niederhagen (Wewelsburg) 1939-1945:

In September 1934 the Wewelsburg castle, located in the village of the same name near Büren, was contracted to Reich Leader-SS Heinrich Himmler, to establish a kind of academy for “SS-Führer” and an ideological center, all according to Himmlers vision. For the work of reconstructing and renovating the castle Himmler used members of the Voluntary Work Service (FAD), who were settled in the Büren district in a camp in a neighboring village since 1932. In 1938 the construction work slowed, however, after the members of the renamed Reich Labor Service (RAD) were drafted to build the “West wall”. In order to continue the work of construction, some hundred prisoners as forced laborers from Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen were sent to Wewelsburg in May 1939, where they had to live in a tent camp and do the work of construction near the „small camp”. Furthermore, they were put to work in the forested areas, in road construction and in quarries. Starting in the summer of 1940 the prisoners had to build a protective custody camp in Niederhagen, which was given the name Wewelsburg satellite camp. Here, in this new camp, further prisoners were interred. In 1941 the SS declared this camp, which still belonged to CC Sachsenhausen and which held some 480 captives, as the autonomous “Concentration Camp Niederhagen”. Until 1943 the prisoner numbers climbed to approx 1,500. In total the size of the/number of prisoners at CC Niederhagen-Wewelsburg was around 3,900 persons. Among them were so-called Bible students (Jehova‘s Witnesses), political prisoners, Roma, homosexuals, Jews, prisoners of war and forced laborers from Poland, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Almost a third of them did not survive the imprisonment. The deaths of at least 1,285 prisoners have been accounted for. They died of hunger, from cold, illnesses, the repercussions of the inhumane labor as well as from the severe abuse. After the defeat at Stalingrad construction on the castle was halted and the Concentration Camp was disbanded on 30 April 1943 by the SS, leaving a remaining unit of 42 men. At the end of March 1945 the SS destroyed the castle through detonation. The remaining prisoners were liberated on 2 April 1945 by American troops.

Source: http://www.wewelsburg.de/de/wewelsburg-1933-1945/historischer-hintergrund.php [Latest access: 2012-08-07] and http://www.memorialmuseums.org/denkmaeler/view/222/Kreismuseum-Wewelsburg:-Wewelsburg-1933-1945.-Erinnerungs--und-Gedenkst%C3%A4tte [Latest access: 2012-08-07].