Documents recovered from Dachau mention that Heppenheim was established on 28th May 1942 and closed temporarily on 18th December 1942 before opening again on 15th June 1943 as Heppenheim sub-camp, administered by Natzweiler concentration camp. It was shut down permanently on 27th March 1945 when American troops occupied the town, following fighting in Hesse. 

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According to Topography of National Socialism in Hesse the camp was located near the Heppenheim railway station. In 1995, a sawmill was located on the site.

 

Horst Riegert mentions that there were 66 male prisoners in the camp, some of whom were Yugoslavians. These prisoners constructed a dried vegetable factory (Trockenkonservenfabrik) where they subsequently worked, alongside work on a farm operated by the SS Business Administration Main Office (WVHA) at the German Experimental Institute for Nutrition and Provisions (Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Ernährung und Verpfl egung GmbH, DVA). They also occasionally worked in the Schriesheim quarries. During the winter, the prisoners had to sort, wash and trim vegetables in unheated rooms. They lived in wooden barracks on the factory site.

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The Heppenheim subcamp was evacuated on 22nd-23rd March 1945 with most of the prisoners being taken to Dachau. The remainder were liberated on March 27, 1945.

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A letter written by American army nurse June Wandrey on 28th March 1945 mentions a POW camp at Heppenheim, which it refers to as a 'POW hospital with hundreds of patients'.

 

According to this letter, the prisoners included 290 Americans who were suffering varying levels of hunger, some of them wounded, alongside Russians, French, Italians, Slavs and Moroccans:

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"Some of our men had been there for seven months" Wandrey writes. "Their smaller wounds were covered with toilet paper, their brutal amputations were covered with rags. The men had torn their field jackets in shreds to bind the primitive dressings. Their bodies were covered with scratches, inflicted when they clawed at their body lice.

 

Breakfast was a piece of wormy, black bread, about two by four inches - a loaf f bread a day for eight to ten men. Lunch was a small bowl of potato-peeling soup with sometimes a little rice in it. If they didn't finish it for lunch, a little water was added to it, and that was their supper. They were shaved sometimes once a month, rarely oftener. Once a month they got a clean sheet. Blankets were never changed nor laundered. If they vomited in bed, it just stayed there with them.

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Our troops had by-passed this village, leaving behind one lone GI who had become separated from his company. From their window, some patients saw him crouching at the corner of their building, rifle in hand. They sneaked out, brought him in, and showed him their horrible conditions. Finally he slipped out, found his company and returned with them to liberate the hospital. 

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As American rations poured in, the men cried. The corridors were stacked with cartons of inappropriate food for these stared men and their shrunken stomachs, but I guess that was all that we had to give at that time. All those who could eat, stuffed themselves so full of rations that most everyone became nauseated. The walkers would go outside and vomit and then gorge themselves and vomit again. It was just for the taste of the food going down, they didn't worry about the return trip.

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When an American died, the Germans wouldn't touch him. They'd make the GIs who were able to walk carry him out and dispose of the body. If one of the men died before he could eat his ration of black bread and slop soup the remaining fellows would fight over it but end up giving everyone a nibble".

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From: "A Combat Nurse's Exhausting Sorrows, Unexpected Joys" by Andrew Carroll, History Net, 24th April 2008.

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Additionally, the former Heppenheim health and nursing home, mentioned by Topography of National Socialism in Hesse was used as a 'military hospital' actively engaged in the Nazi euthanasia programme. As early as 14th July 1933, patients at the nursing home had been forcibly sterilised under the "Law for the Prevention of Diseased Offspring". From the end of 1941, the site was used by the Wehrmacht as a military hospital for POWs, accommodating French, Russian and Americans. These prisoners were subjected to Nazi 'racial ideology' policies and the Russians suffered particularly badly, with 368 Russians dying there, out of a total of 685 deaths.

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The site was also used as a transit camp for a state hospital at Hadamar, also engaged in the euthanasia programme, accommodating Jews and 'feeble-minded persons'. Various other institutions channelled inmates destined for Hadamar through Heppenheim.

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Correspondence from the period 1936-40 identifies the, then, director of the Heppenheim 'health institute' as Dr Schmeel and reveals that he was a member of the Nazi party. The correspondence also includes various reports showing that several physicians at the institute were engaged in propaganda work for the party.

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Sources:

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The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Encyclopaedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, edited by Geoffrey P. Megargee, p201-202, citing:

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The ITS’s Verzeichnis der Haftstätten unter dem Reichsführer- SS (1933–1945) (Arolsen: Suchdienst, 1979) mentions Heppenheim at 1:204.

 

Horst Riegert, in “Aussenkommandos Bensheim- Auerbach und Heppenheim,” in Hessen hinter Stacheldraht: Verdrängt und vergessen; KZs, Lager, Aussenkommandos, ed. Lothar Bembenek (Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn- Verlag, 1984), p. 57, provides a short description of the camp.

 

The BA collections, NS 4, KL Na (Natzweiler) refer to the camp in the following subcollections: 49–102: Häftlingsangelegenheiten; within that range, number 85—Errichtung und Besichtigung einzelner AK—and also number 102—Kommando Heppenheim: “Häftlingsküche Heppenheim”; Kontrollbuch über Zu- und Abgänge bei Lebensmitteln, 1943.

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