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Forgotten Horrors

The Nazi sub-camp system

Munchen-Schwabing

Munchen-Schwabing

Sister Pia.JPG
Oberhaching.JPG

The subcamp at München-Schwabing was also known as Schwester Pia. It was the first subcamp where prisoners were used permanently as a labour force outside the main, 'parent', camp of Dachau. Unlike most of the later subcamps, which were constructed, organised and administered by the SS Business Administration Main Office (WVHA) and the camp commandant at Dachau, the establishment and organisation of München-Schwabing was overseen by Eleonore Baur, also known as Schwester Pia (Sister Pia), hence the alternative name by which the subcamp was known. The camp was also smaller than many of the others, and was an example of instances in which prisoners were used by individuals or very small organisations. 

Eleonore Baur was an ardent and fanatical National Socialist from the start. In her statement, she said that she had received the title 'Sister Pia' from the Gelbes Kreuz ('Yellow Cross') order in Munich, although she had never actually qualified as a nurse. She met Adolf Hitler in 1920 while travelling on a tram in Munich and subsequently became involved in helping to form the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), being one of the first party members and having close connections to important party officials. She helped to care for the wounded and dead during the Munich putsch in 1923 and in 1934 became the only woman to receive the Blutorden - a Nazi decoration awarded to veterans of the putsch. 

After the Nazis gained power in 1933, she achieved a close association with SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who appointed her as Welfare Sister for the Waffen SS at Dachau. In 1934, she helped to form Schwesternschaft - the National Socialist Order of Sisters and became its honorary chairwoman in 1937. 

Between 1937 and 1945, Baur prisoners from Dachau renovate her house in Munich Oberhaching. This involved the redesign of the garden gate and a general tidy-up. The prisoners also built a garage, an enclosed swimming pool and a bunker and in Dachau's camp workshops produced furniture, wood carvings and children's toys for her. Most of this she never actually paid for and in the camp she acquired a reputation as someone who would take anything she saw if she could. 

At first, prisoners worked at Baur's home one or more days per week, returning to Dachau each evening. However, from 1940, she was allotted a permanent working detail of 12 to 14 men who were subsequently accommodated at the house itself, only returning to Dachau at the weekends. Baur was in charge of the prisoners and it was her who allocated them work. She worked them hard, including on Sundays, with security provided by SS guards from Dachau. 

None of the prisoners were mistreated and there were no deaths. Baur never harmed any of them, but, even so, almost all the prisoners later accused her of bullying them, for example by forcing them to climb down into an outside toilet pit to clean it with a brush if one of them displeased her. The prisoners also feared her because of her influence on the camp leadership. 

After the war, Baur was deemed to be a Nazi criminal in the denazification proceedings of 1949 and was sentenced to ten years in Rebdorf Labour Camp. However, she was released from the camp in 1950 on grounds of ill health. She returned to her house, where she died in 1981. She remained a National Socialist until her death.

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