Kaufering concentration camp

View of huts after the liberation of Kaufering, April 1945.

Kaufering concentration camps were a network of subsidiary camps of the Dachau concentration camp.

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Establishment

With the intensification of the Allied air war against German industrial and military enterprises after 1943, the German Armaments Ministry and the Schutzstaffel (SS) agreed to accelerate construction of massive underground factories, using large numbers of conscripted laborers and concentration camp prisoners. Hundreds of satellite camps attached to major Nazi concentration camps were established throughout the German Reich in 1944 and 1945. Inmates were compelled to hollow out the sides of mountains or caves for immense systems of tunnels and factories that would be secure from Allied bombs. Those who survived these tasks were often used to build new weaponry, such as the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, and V-2 ballistic missiles.

In Bavaria, two major camp systems, Mühldorf and Kaufering, were set up as subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp. Its inmates provided the labor necessary to build subterranean facilities for fighter aircraft production in the Landsberg area. The region was chosen in part because of its favorable geological composition for the construction of mammoth underground installations, which were to be insulated by 9 to 15 feet thick concrete walls. To house the concentration camp prisoners, the SS created camps near the proposed industrial sites. At the Kaufering and Mühldorf camps, prisoners often slept in poorly heated and badly provisioned earthen huts, which were partially submerged in the soil and covered with earth to disguise them from the air. The larger of Kaufering's 11 camps each contained several thousand prisoners, the vast majority of whom were Jews. Disease, malnutrition, and the brutal conditions in the workplace and in the camps took its toll on the inmates, resulting in a high mortality rate.

Memorial to those who died at Kaufering or during forced marches out, created by Hubertus von Pilgrim.

As U.S. armed forces approached the Kaufering complex in late April 1945, the SS began evacuating the camps, sending the prisoners on death marches in the direction of Dachau. Those inmates who could not keep up were often shot or beaten to death by the guards. When US troops entered Kaufering IV, they found 360 dead prisoners including the still smoldering corpses of 86 prisoners who died in their quarters when the SS set fire to them because these men were too ill or weak to move.

An early visitor to the camp was J.D. Salinger, at the time a Sergeant in the CIC. Salinger was traumatized by the horrors of the camp. He later said, "You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live."

Liberation

Kaufering Lager IV was discovered by soldiers of the 134th Ordinance Maintenance Battalion of the 12th Armored Division led by Capt. John P. Jones around noon on April 27, 1945.^[1]^[2] Colonel Edward F. Seiller, commander of the 12th Armored Division's Military Government, took control of the camp and had some 250 civilians from the nearby town of Landsberg brought to the camp and made them bury the dead prisoners.^[3] These 360 dead repose in a cemetery located where the roll-call area (Appell Platz) of the camp used to be, that is about a mile south of the village of Hurlach.^[4]

In popular culture

Liberation of one of the Kaufering subcamps of Dachau was depicted in Episode 9 "Why We Fight" of the TV mini-series Band of Brothers, a dramatization of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division in the European Theater of Operations. In actuality, the camp was discovered by the 134th Ordinance Maintenance Battalion of the 12th Armored Division.^[5]^[6]

References

↑ "Die Amerikanische Armee entdeckt den Holocaust (The American army discovered the Holocaust)". Europäische Holocaustgedenkstätte Stiftung (European Holocaust Memorial Foundation). Retrieved 27 May 2015.
↑ "Members of the 12th Armored Division". The 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
↑ Bradstreet, Ken (1987). "GIs Discover Holocaust – Lt. Col. Julien Saks". 12th Armored Division History Book - Vol One (PDF). Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Publishing Company. pp. 117–120. ISBN 0-938021-09-5. Retrieved 15 September 2015.
↑ "Kaufering". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
↑ "The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum:The 12th Armored Division". The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
↑ "The 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum:Liberation of Concentration Camps". The 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum. Retrieved 27 May 2015.

Kaufering USHMM

External links

Coordinates: 48°07′23″N 10°50′28″E / 48.123°N 10.841°E / 48.123; 10.841

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