Forgotten Horrors
The Nazi sub-camp system
Augsburg-Pfersee
Augsburg-Pfersee
Augsburg had been a large garrison town for much of its history. When the war broke out three large barracks were established there. The Augsburg labour camp complex served an armaments factory manufacturing Messerschmitt aircraft. There were actually three main camps serving the factory. One of these was at Haunstetten, fairly close to the factory while the other camps were at Augsburg-Pfersee and Gablingen, some distance away, to the north. One of these camps may have later become the Sheridan Kaserne, a German military barracks that was later taken over by the US Army.
In 1943, almost 3,000 prisoners were forced to work in the factory, which was divided into two large production areas called Werk III and Werk IV with additional component workshops (Werk I). The factory attracted labourers, technicians and researchers from all over Germany, and so in 1937 the 'Messerschmitt Settlement' was built to house them. This was expanded two years later in 1939. The number of workers at the factory grew to around 18,000 by 1945, of which around 47 percent were foreign or forced labourers. The area is now the Haunstetten University Quarter and the industrial and residential area to the south of it. Some of the production facilities were later taken over by Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace and EADS and the area is now known as Aerotec. This was a massive complex encompassing pretty much all of the built up area you can see in the middle of the picture above. During the war it was one of the largest sub-camps in Germany
The prisoners held at Pfersee had to march a considerable distance in order to get to the factory. The prisoners worked 12 hour shifts and they mostly produced fighter planes, almost certainly the Messerschmitt ME109 but possibly also the ME262 jet fighter.
Most of the deaths among the labourers, apart from those caused by air raids, were from cold and lack of food. One account of Augsburg by a prisoner held there describes how executions were carried out. Edmond Falkuss recalls that those who allowed themselves to be hanged without any fuss simply received a noose around their necks and were then pushed off the pedestal so that their neck broke immediately. Some prisoners, particularly the Russians, tried to fight back or otherwise cursed the SS. They were hanged slowly so that they suffocated. This would take a long time, which meant that the prisoner characteristically kept wriggling for a while, suffering terribly as he did so. Falkuss was the camp clerk during his internment at Augsburg, from 1943 until the end of the war.
The prisoners were not allowed protection from allied air raids in shelters, so many hundreds of them died during these raids. The Haunstetten camp was destroyed by bombing in April 1944, forcing the prisoners to move to other camps in Augsburg. Just prior to the end of the war, the prisoners were evacuated from the camp and forced to march to Klemach, but they were liberated by the US army on 27th April 1945.
One of the US soldiers involved in the liberation of Haunstetten was J. D. Salinger, the famous author of the book The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger's 12th Division reached Haunstetten on 30th April, the day Hitler committed suicide in Berlin. According to biography of Salinger, the troops were baffled by what they saw, taking a while to realise that the inmates were not ordinary prisoners. The personal diary of , a member of the 552nd Field Artillery Battalion (attached to the 12th Infantry Regiment during the closing weeks of April 1945), records the scene as the troops reached the gates of the camp:
"When the gates swung open, we got our first look at the prisoners. Many of them were Jews. They were wearing black and white striped prison suits and round caps. A few had shredded blanket rags draped over their shoulders. The prisoners struggled to their feet after the gates were opened. They shuffled weakly out of the compound. They were like skeletons - all skin and bones"
(Diary of Sergeant Ichiro Imamura, April 29, 1945; Pierre Moulin, Dachau, Holocaust, and US Samurais: Nisei Solidiers First in Dachau? (Bloomington, Ind.: Authorhouse, 2007), 125)
Salinger never spoke of his experiences, but it definitely changed him.
References:
Subcamps in Augsburg,
Slawenski, Kenneth (2010): J. D. Salinger: A Life, New York: Random House