Krieg, Bewegung und extreme Gewalt

Overview & Synopsis

Shortly before the end of the Second World War, the ‘camp on the move’ claimed thousands more lives. One of the defining features of the end of the war in Germany in 1945 was an evacuation policy directed at regional level and organised locally. Whilst the Nazi regime left the German population to fend for themselves, prisoners in the concentration camps were to be deported further into the heart of the Reich or murdered on the spot as soon as Allied units approached. As the Red Army advanced to the Oder in January 1945, the first satellite camps of Sachsenhausen were in danger of coming within range of the fighting. Janine Fubel examines the final months of one of the central German concentration camp complexes. She demonstrates how the camp command had already begun implementing evacuation measures at this stage, before the final clearance commenced in April with the death marches. Drawing on extensive source material, the organisation, personnel and practices involved in the camp’s dissolution and the forced marches are described in unprecedented detail and placed within the context of the war. The violence learned during the war of extermination in the East was ultimately transferred to the heart of the German Reich. Camp personnel, the SS, the police, but also the local population put this knowledge of violence into practice against the deportees. The brutal clearance continued into the first days of May and claimed thousands of victims.