Wewelsburg 1933 - 1945Megalomania and Terror of the SSLWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen

23 Dealing with the former Concentration Camp areaPicture 23.1 Former Gatehouse of Niederhagen Concentration Camp in the early post-war Period

(Original photograph from a private collection)Picture 23.2 Former Gatehouse of Niederhagen Concentration Camp, 1990s

(Original photograph from a private collection, Photographer: J. Büttner)Picture 23.3 View across the former roll-call ground to the former Gate-House, 1990s

(Original photograph from a private collection, Photographer: J. Büttner)Picture 23.4 Dedication of the Memorial at the former roll-call ground, 2 April 2000

(Original photograph from a private collection)Picture 23.5 Normality? View from the former “Bunker” to the former Concentration Camp roll-call ground, 2006

(Photographer: S. Sagurna)The process of normalisation that set in from 1945 on, in which "coming to terms with the past through work and recon-struction” as well as repressing and forgetting the Nazi period, finally eliminated almost all of the relics of Nazi terror aswell as related endeavours to remember what had happened. This development finds vivid expression in the metamor-phosis of the former gate-house of the concentration camp in Wewelsburg (Picture 23.1). The structural and functionalchanges made to the building form a part of the history of the former concentration camp site.As early as summer 1943, after Niederhagen Concentration Camp was dissolved, the approximately 40 inmates whoremained there and now served as an external commando to Buchenwald Concentration Camp evacuated the ”protecti-ve custody camp” and moved into a building on the neighbouring craftsmen’s yard. Their living conditions improved as aresult. No more inmates died. On 2 April 1945 they were liberated by soldiers of the US army.Opposite the craftsmen’s yard stood the evacuated barracks of the former SS camp. The barracks had once accommo-dated the camp guards. In the autumn of 1943, they were occupied by "Volksdeutsche” [people of German ancestry] fromEastern Europe, who the "SS-Stabshauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle” (VOMI [the Coordination Office of the SS StaffMain Office for Volksdeutsche]) had intended to resettle in Germany. This "VOMI camp” was relocated in the former inma-tes’ camp in October 1944, when a "Military Combat Training Camp” was established (in the former camp for the SSguards) under the command of the SS to train youths for military service. During the last few days of the war they actual-ly did fight against the advancing US troops. After the liberation in 1945, many of the "Volksdeutsche” returned to theirhome countries in Eastern Europe. Those who stayed behind were distributed among the surrounding villages. Beforethey left Wewelsburg, they erected a tall wooden cross at the entrance to the former SS camp.After an interlude in which the building was used as a "DP [Displaced Persons] camp”, i.e. as a camp for "foreign workers”from Eastern Europe who were transported back to their home countries, it was the refugees and expellees from the

Wewelsburg 1933 - 1945Megalomania and Terror of the SSLWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen

Picture 23.2 Former Gatehouse of Niederhagen Concentration Camp, 1990s

Picture 23.3 View across the former roll-call ground to the former Gate-House, 1990s

Wewelsburg 1933 - 1945Megalomania and Terror of the SSLWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen

Picture 23.4 Dedication of the Memorial at the former roll-call ground, 2 April 2000

Eastern territories of the German Reich, which had collapsed as a result of the Nazis’ war policies and repressive measu-res, who shaped the subsequent history of the camp grounds. Since it had the buildings of the former concentration campat its disposal, the parish of Wewelsburg had to accept the largest number of expellees in the district of Büren. The villa-ge population doubled from 1,087 in 1939 to 2,026 in 1950. The former "preventive detention camp” thus became a refu-gee camp. A small trading and residential estate came into being on the former craftsmen’s yard. The barracks of the for-mer preventive detention and SS camp, on the other hand, became the subject of a protracted dispute among the autho-rities concerned. The dispute was triggered off by the complicated ownership situation. The barracks had been construc-ted by the SS Society for the Preservation and Promotion of German Cultural Monuments, which had also leased the con-centration camp grounds from the parish of Wewelsburg. Like the SS itself, this "Society” was banned and declared "ille-gal” by Law No. 2 of the Allied Control Council in 1945. The "Society’s” assets were to belong to the German Land onwhose territory they were located. Consequently, the parish of Wewelsburg was handed back its real estate, but the Landof North Rhine Westphalia retained a "claim … (on the buildings) … on account of enrichment”. The reasoning ran as fol-lows: the parish had leased a plot of woodland to the SS in 1940, but now it was regaining a developed area with buil-dings and equipment! This "increase in value” was put at DM 31,860. After lengthy negotiations, the parish and the Landfinally agreed on a sum of approximately DM 17,000 in 1957. One can imagine the effect the attitude of the Land autho-rities had on the villagers.The main direct consequence of the authorities’ activities, as perceived by the inhabitants of the post-war "camp”, was thata considerable time elapsed before their demands for the demolition of the "poor quarters” (as they rightly saw the bar-racks) were met. They wanted to live in "normal” houses again after all this time, if only to escape further discrimination(Picture 23.5). In 1956 work began on demolishing the barracks. New houses were constructed. The tall wooden crosscollapsed. No attempt was made to re-erect it. Nor did the members of the Protestant parish (which now owned the realestate), which came into being after 1945 due to the influx of refugees into what had hitherto been a purely Catholic villa-ge, see any reason for doing so. In 1960, a grocery shop moved into the gate-house of the former concentration camp.The shop had been run by an erstwhile SS Block Leader in one of the barracks on the former concentration camp groundsfrom 1949 on. The gate arch was walled in. A cabinet maker’s and carpenter’s workshop extended its premises, a wirefactory started production in the old SS parking shed. In 1958, the crematorium, which had been used as a residential buil-ding until then, was incorporated into a new factory hall. The "bunker” - i.e. the concentration camp prison - was pulled

Wewelsburg 1933 - 1945Megalomania and Terror of the SSLWL-Medienzentrum für Westfalen

Picture 23.5 Normality? View from the former Galgen to the ConcentrationCamp roll-call ground, 2006

down in 1960. With its demolition in 1965, the former inmates’ quarters was the last of the barracks to go. Only five of themassive buildings of the concentration camp have remained, although not in their original state. The gate-house was con-verted into a spacious residential building (Picture 23.2). The former roll-call ground, undeveloped and overgrown over theyears amidst the embellished estate, stretched out behind the building. In 1988 a preservation order was placed on theroll-call ground and the bordering building that had once served as the inmates’ kitchen and canteen. Furthermore, therewere plans to reach agreement with the occupants of the adjacent houses on improving the appearance of the formercamp property. But no agreement was reached on erecting a notice or any other kind of memorial. Following lengthy dis-cussions, a decision was made to indicate the position of the former camp road, as the only visual sign of the past, by pla-cing natural stones on the grass surface of the roll-call ground. (Picture 23.3)The survivors of Niederhagen Concentration Camp, who visited Wewelsburg in 1992, requested that a memorial stone ora similar monument be erected on the roll-call ground. However, their request went unheeded at the time (see Document23.1). It was only on 2 April 2000 – on the 55th anniversary of the liberation of Wewelsburg concentration camp– that astone memorial was unveiled on the former roll-call ground (see Picture 23.4). The memorial came about at the initiativeof the working group “Gedenktag 2. April in Wewelsburg”, which comprised young residents of Wewelsburg who wantedto preserve the memory of the victims of SS violence in Wewelsburg. Some of the concentration camp survivors, who hadbeen trying hard for many years to get a memorial of some kind, were able to take part in the ceremony (see Document23.2) to dedicate the new memorial.