On August
17th, 1938, the Reichsminister für Luftfahrt (Reich Air
Ministry) decreed the construction of a military airfield (Einsatzhafen I)[1]
within the boundaries of the townships of Tailfingen, Hailfingen and
Bondorf.[2]
The undevelopped terrain there was suitable as it was flat, hardly ever
had fog, and had the strategical advantage of being relatively close to the
French border. When the forest that covered part of the 160 hectares (395.4
acres) had been cleared, the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labour Service)
levelled the terrain and started to build a runway which was 1200 metres (0.75
miles) long and 18 metres (59 ft) wide.
Before a
part of the 1st Group of Nachtjägergeschwader 6
(Night-Fighter Wing), 1./NJG 6, was stationed at Hailfingen in May 1944[3], the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) used the
site as an alternate airfield and as an Einsatzhafen (airbase)
respectively. When attacks by allied aircraft increased, the Luftgaukommando VII ( territorial
air command) wanted better protection for the air base and its night-fighter
aircraft. Until March 1944 it planned two taxiways and alternate runways
repectively, splinterproof blast pens and some smaller hangars[4].
The Organisation Todt (OT) managed
the construction work which was carried out by different companies. The
manpower used by Luftwaffe and the building firms consisted of various
groups of prisoners of war (POW) and forced labourers who were housed at the
airfield.
The OT-camp
consisted of 4 barrack-buildings on the northern side of the airbase. Next to
it was a hangar with a fence around it: some 350 forced labourers who had been
deported from Athens (>Tabarowski) and afterwards 600 Jewish KZ-prisoners
were put up there between September and November 1944. Another camp with a
barbed-wire fence had been set up probably as early as 1942 for some 100 Soviet
POWs who were forced to work in the quarries surrounding the airbase. Another
two barracks accomodated POWs from France and civilian workers from Belgium,
who could move around comparatively freely. From January 1945, some 300 British
Army personnel from India arrived. They had been taken prisoner in Northern
Africa and were provided for relatively well by the Red Cross. Italian
volunteers of the Wehrmacht (German Army) worked on the airfield as
well; they had uniforms but no weapons. For a short period there was also a
group of Hungarian soldiers retreating with the Wehrmacht.
The KZ-Außenlager at Hailfingen/Tailfingen
Airfield
On
September 13th, 1944, the Tübingen branch of the OT managing
the Hailfingen building site applied via the Natzweiler command to the WVHA
(Administration and Economy Main Office of the SS) in Oranienburg for 600 KZ-prisoners
to be mustered. The OT demanded 150 “Häftlings-Facharbeiter” (prisoner-craftsmen).
This number should be made up of 40 bricklayers, 20 cabinetmakers, 70
carpenters, 20 metal workers and mechanics. It also demanded 450 “Häftlings-Hilfsarbeiter”:
prisoners as unskilled labourers. The deployment of these prisoners was
declared urgent as it contributed directly to the defence of the Reich,
food and shelter would be taken care of by the OT. On September 25th,
1944, the SS-WVHA approved the detachment of prisoners and the usual
“tariff” of 6 RM (Reichsmark) per day for a prisoner-craftsman
and 4 RM for an unskilled prisoner was fixed.[5]
The
following day Natzweiler concentration camp allocated Hailfingen Airbase by
special instruction to the 7.Wachkompanie (guard company) of the 1.Wachsturmbann
(SS Guard Battalion)[6].
SS-Unterscharführer (corporal) Eugen Witzig became commandant of the
subsidiary concentration camp at Hailfingen airbase. He had been a member of
staff at the commandant´s office at Natzweiler concentration camp.[7]
On November
17th, 1944, the SS at KZ Stutthof near Danzig assembled 600
Jewish prisoners for transport; they had been classified as fit to work.[8]
The majority of these prisoners had left Auschwitz with a transport on October
10th, 1944 and had arrived at Stutthof October 28th, 1944.[9]
The administration of KZ Natzweiler enrolled these prisoners´ names in
the central list of numbers, Nummernbuch Nr.6, allocating them
consecutive numbers from 40 448 up to 41 049. [10]
By mid-March 1945, when the camp had already been broken up, the date of death
of prisoners was still registered in this Nummernbuch.
According
to the Nummernbuch, there were Jewish prisoners from at least 15 different countries: 260 Polish, 128
Hungarians, 47 French, 33 Latvians, 27 Dutch, 24 Reichsdeutsche (Germans
and Austrians), 20 Greeks, 19 Italians, 12 Lithuanians, seven Belgians, three
Czechs, three Slovaks and three Romanians, two Turks, one Bulgarian, and eight
stateless persons. The nationality of three persons is illegible. The prisoners
had come to Auschwitz via - among others - the following assembly camps:
Fossoli (Italy), Drancy (France), Mechelen (Belgium) and Westerbork
(Netherlands). According to the Nummernbuch they were between 15 and 60
years old. However, some of them had stated a false age as they had been afraid
of getting murdered immediately (>Billauer). The social background and
biographies were just as different as the nationalities: there was a veteran of
the Spanish Civil War (Emanuel Mink), a member of the British Expeditionary
Force (Wald), members of the Résistance (Mink, Minkowski, Bily), of the Dutch
resistance (Koekkoek), and so on. Some of the prisoners had 5 years in ghetto,
labour and concentration camps behind them when they came to Hailfingen, others
had just been deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. Among those were the
prisoners who had come from Fossoli or with the last transports that had left
Drancy. On November 19th, 1944,[11]
the group arrived at Nebringen station in goods waggons and was marched off to
the airfield.
Every day
after roll call, the prisoners were divided into labour bataillons. Foremen of
the OT and of the building firms supervised them. The guards at
Hailfingen concentration camp consisted almost exclusively of members of the Luftwaffe
who had become unable to do service at the front. The treatment the
prisoners received from these men differed extremely. There were also a few Landesschützen
(members of the Home Defence) who were on duty mainly during the day. Work
was done in quarries of which some had been set up for the construction of the
airbase (>Kornblit, Arbeiter). The stones and gravel were used to improve
the runway and to build the taxiways. For the westbound taxiway a small forest
had to be cleared. Trees had to be felled to build the hangars. On top of this,
prisoners had to remove dud bombs (>Ciechanower).
Initially
the prisoners slept on the floor of the hangar which had been mulched with
straw. Some 60 or 70 roosts more were on a suspended ceiling. There was next to
no sanitation, a latrine pit north of the hangar served for a toilet, and the
hangar itself was
infested
with vermin. Alimentation was absolutely insufficient and there was no medical
care whatsoever. Prisoners who were ill or unable to work were mistreated, some
of them were bludgeoned to death. Several prisoners were shot. The surgeon
major in charge, Dr. Rothe, usually stated fictitious causes such as pneumonia
or poor circulation of the blood in his death notes. In three cases, however,
he did state bullet wounds.[12]
Yet most of the victims died of hard labour, under-nourishment, the cold
and diseases. The first of the victims was Max Steinhardt who died on November
21, 1944.
Sometimes
the prisoners would get something to eat from the villagers of Öschelbronn,
Bondorf and Reusten, where they passed through on their way to work.
In the
crematorium of the Unter den Linden cemetery in Reutlingen, 97 bodies
from the Hailfingen camp were cremated between November 21st, 1944
and January 5th, 1945, the day the crematorium closed.[13]
Moreover, the Nummernbuch lists the date of death of 15 prisoners
more between December 4th and December 9th, 1944. They
were cremated at Ebershaldenfriedhof cemetery.[14]
In the mass grave that was discovered on June 2nd, 1945, the remains
of 74 dead bodies were found. On three of them, the Auschwitz registration
tattoo was still legible. They have been identified as Anton Schwarz, A 17404,
died January 31st, 1945; Ernst Lebowicz, 65194, died February 7th,
1945; and Sabi Vintourero (Winturero), A 12058, died February 8th,
1945.
There is no
evidence that prisoners other than Marion Kornblit, who escaped in February
1945, were able to flee from the camp. As the Allies approached, work was
cancelled and the base was abandoned. One transport went to Vaihingen/Enz. At
least 48 of the 111 prisoners who were brought there on February 13th,
1945, died in the weeks between then and April 4th, 1945. The SS
sent prisoners who they considered fit for transportation from Vaihingen/Enz to
Dachau-Allach, just a few days before the liberation of the camp. And from
there, many prisoners were sent on death marches.(Staltach> Bajnerman,
Friedmann, Baum)
One last
transport left Hailfingen on February 14th, 1945. 296 prisoners who
had remained in Hailfingen were deported to Dautmergen; it is verified that
nine of them died there.[15]
If these numbers, which have been quoted by Eric Breuer[16],
are correct then approximately 190 prisoners lost their lives in Hailfingen.[17]
Another 84 prisoners are known to have died in camps to which they were brought
before the liberation. The date and place of death of 267 prisoners are known
today. It must be assumed, however, that the actual number of victims is much
higher. The fates of 200 prisoners are still unaccounted for. We know of 120
Jewish prisoners who survived. Probably
less than
half of the 600 prisoners saw the day of the Allied liberation, perhaps only a
quarter of them. In the very last days of the war the death marches from Dautmergen
and Dachau-Allach respectively claimed many victims who were left by the
roadside and never listed. An unknown number of prisoners was relocated from
Dautmergen to the camp for the dying at Bergen-Belsen in March 1945
(>Ciechanower). They were more or less left to take care for themselves
there; the death toll was so high at Bergen-Belsen that the camp´s capacities
did not suffice for the number of bodies that needed to be removed. Survivors
were liberated in different places, e.g. in Ostrach near Saulgau (>Fiszel),
in Landsberg (>Jack Spicer), in Sigmaringen (>Abraham Stuttman), in
Altshausen (>Piasek, Wassermann) and in Staltach (>Bajnerman, Friedmann,
Baum).
From 1947
to 1949 the Court of the First Instance of the French High-Command in Germany
for the Conviction of War Crimes held proceedings in Rastatt against some of
the persons held responsible for the crimes that had been committed at
Hailfingen. Only three persons were accused: Karl Bäuerle, a foreman of the OT,
(>) Abraham Stuttmann who had been Lagerältester (senior camp
prisoner), and (>) Leo Kac, Stubendienst, i.e. a prisoner who cleaned
out rooms. Stuttmann and Kac had been incriminated by fellow ex-prisoners.
Despite some controversy Stuttmann was sentenced to two years and six months in
prison by the Court of the First Instance, Kac got one year. Karl Bäuerle was
sentenced to ten years in jail. The judgement of the appeal court reconfirmed
these sentences on November 17th, 1949.
As from
1967 the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung
nationalsozialistischer Gewaltverbrechen (Central Office of the
Administration of Justice of the Federal States for the Solution of Nazi
Felony) investigated against Bruno Störzer, Karl Bäuerle, Mischa as well as Leo
Kac and others whose name was hitherto unknown, for murder in the Hailfingen
subsidiary camp of KZ Natzweiler. Of the survivors of KZ
Hailfingen, who by then lived in countries all over world, 25 were heard as
witnesses.[18]
The proceedings were stayed as after the sentences in the Rastatt trials,
German courts according to article 3 of the Überleitungsvertrag
(Protocol on the Termination of the Occupation Régime in the Federal Republic
of Germany) no longer had jurisdiction. Also, the investigators held the view that the guards could not be identified
any more.
On June 1st,
1945, three of the survivors (>Marion Kornblit, Abraham Stuttman, Israel
Arbeiter) showed French soldiers the mass grave on the site of the airbase. It
was opened the following day. The male population of Oberndorf and Hailfingen
as well as all citizens of Bondorf and Tailfingen had to walk to the airfield
and dig out the bodies there, the men from Tailfingen had to open the mass
grave; some of them were abused by French soldiers in the process. One man with
a heart condition died of exhaustion, another one died of the blows he had been
dealt some days later. The women from Tailfingen had to dig a grave on
Tailfingen´s cemetery, to which the bodies were transferred. The French ordered
a wooden cross for the cemetery with the inscription: “Here rest 72 unknown KZ-prisoners”.
Locals were
always eager to emhasise that “one had not known”, and the concentration camp
was hushed up for decades after 1945,
yet local memory had always been aware of the history of the camp.
However, this memory was overlaid with the memory of the French and the events
at the mass grave. These were exploited repeatedly to distract from the Nazi
crimes or to play them down.
The former airfield was only
interesting as far as its future use was concerned. Twice - in the late 1960ies
and in 1972/73 - it was discussed as a possible site for a major airport, Großflughafen Stuttgart II. Relatives
of (>) Ignac Klein put a memorial stone next to the wooden cross on the
cemetery at Tailfingen in the mid-1960ies. After a well founded scientific
essay on the subsidiary concentration camp had been published in 1978[19] (19), the first
activities and events followed in 1982. The DKP (German Communist Party)
Tübingen put up a wooden sign at the end of the runway saying: “ Here was the
Concentration Camp Hailfingen-Natzweiler Alsace. Hundreds of KZ-prisoners
who were ill-treated and murdered here warn us. No more fascism. No more war.”
Like the events mentioned above this sign was met with strict denial by parts
of the population and was besmeared several times. In 1985 the “Förderverein
zur Errichtung eines Mahnmals für die Opfer des Konzentrationslagers
Hailfingen/Tailfingen” ( Society for the Construction of a Memorial for the
Victims of the Concentration Camp Hailfingen/Tailfingen) was founded, and a
year later the townships of Rottenburg and Gäufelden and the Israelitische
Religionsgemeinschaft Württemberg (Jewish Religious Community Württemberg)
unveiled a memorial stone on the cemetery in Tailfingen. As the society also
considered commemoration important on the site itself, an information board was
put up there. This was besmeared as well. The township of Gäufelden presented
aerial photos taken by the Allies and a reconstructed plan of the airbase in an
exhibition in late 2001. In 2002 the Böblingen-Herrenberg-Tübingen branch of
the society Gegen Vergessen - Für Demokratie (Against Oblivion - For
Democracy, GV-FD) began to account for the past of the KZ Außenlager
Tailfingen/Hailfingen. A
thorough
documentation of the history of both airbase and camp was published in 2007.[20]
Also in 2007, GV/FD published the autobiography of Mordechai
Ciechanower, one of the survivors, which had been translated from Hebrew.[21] (21) It also published
the memoirs of Marga Griesbach, née Steinhardt, the daughter of the first
victim of the camp.[22] (22) Multimedia teaching
material was put together, which in autumn 2007 was made accessible via the
website of the Kreismedienzentrum (County Media Center) Böblingen (www.zeitreise-bb.de).
Johannes Kuhn from Herrenberg and GV/FD made a documentary film of 60
minutes, “Geschützter Grünbestand”
(protected green stock), which was first shown on April 7th,
2006.
The St.Meinrad-Gymnasium
(grammar school) Rottenburg started a project called “Gedenkpfad”, walk
of remembrance, in 2007/2008. Gäufelden borough council has resolved an
exhibition in Tailfingen city hall which is being put together and will ready
by summer 2009. Also in 2009, the city of Rottenburg will put up a memorial on
the site of the airbase to commemorate the Jewish victims.
Traces in the Landscape
A demolition team of the German Army destroyed
the runway on April 6th/7th, 1945. On April 9th,
1945, Allied fighters bombed the airfield. On April 18th, 1945, it
was seized by troops of the 2nd. French Army Corps which had been
moving forward from Nagold via Mötzingen and Bondorf.In spite of all the
destruction the Allied Air Command planned to put the airfield back into
operation, but with a longer runway. The building company Kirchhoff worked on
behalf of the French Air Force at the airfield until the beginning of 1946.[23] Although it once covered 160
hectares, there is hardly anything left to see of the airfield today. The
buildings were dismantled and brought away in February/March, 1946. Rail track
that led from Nebringen station to the airfield was removed when a new through
road, the B 14, was built in 1959. The site of the hangar is now the Tailfingen
sports-club.What used to be the runway, which had been destroyed and later
repaired, is now overgrown. Since the 1980ies it is a nature reserve (Geschützter
Grünbestand, protected green stock). There are very few traces left: next
to the overgrown runway there are remains of a repair-hangar east of the
motorway within the Reusten boundaries and the remains of another hangar on a
furlong called “Keßlers Hölzle” in Öschelbronn. In compliance with § 2
of the Denkmalschutzgesetz (Law for the Protection of Historic Buildings
and Monuments) the remnants of the airbase have been declared archeological and
cultural relics, 2007 on the boundaries of Tailfingen, 2008 on the boundaries
of Hailfingen.
[1]An airbase only for starts and landings with an
asphalted airstrip.
[2]The base was named “Hailfingen” because the
command was within the boundary of Hailfingen.
[3]The squadron´s recce aircraft stayed at
Echterdingen initially. Diary of 1./NJG 6, BMF RL 10 542.
[4]BMF RL 19 215 (Bundesarchiv Militärarchiv Freiburg).
[5]ITS Sachdokumente M 3 Hailfingen. Page 63, application of the OT construction management Tübingen, Hailfingen building site, dated “13. 9. 1944”.
[6]BAB (Bundesarchiv – Berlin-Lichterfelde) NS4 Na/13, Sonderbefehl vom 26. 9. 1944.
[7]BAL (Bundesarchiv Außenstelle Ludwigsburg) courtpapers of Landgericht Hechingen, Ordner 23, Bl. 5030.
[8]It is possible that
the transport consisted of 1200 prisoners and that half of them were brought to
Echterdingen.
[9]Transport list
Auschwitz-Stutthof and prisoners´ personnel files. Museum Stutthof Archives.
[10]BAL EL
317 III, Bü 1312; FNP, 72 AJ 2171.
[11]Eric Breuer, Les
miracles.
[12]Jakob Diamantstein, died December 11th, 1944: shot in the
stomach; Henri Lortnoi/Portnoi: also died December 11th, 1944: shot
in the head. Testimony by witness Ajzyk Bajnermann provides evidence that a
Ukrainian guard named Mischa shot Szydlowiec-born Abraham Sternschuss
(Szternschuss) on December 13th, 1944, because he had left the
column in order to pick up an apple. In the death note the cause of death is
stated as “shot in the stomach”.
[13]StadtA Reutlingen, Friedhofsverwaltung Nr. 304, Einäscherungsverzeichnis für Schutzhäftlinge; Rechnungen der Friedhofsverwaltung an die Oberbauleitung der OT Balingen, Abschnitt Hailfingen K.Z.-Lager, ebenda (List of cremated prisoners in protective custody, bills to be paid by the OT).
[14]Document of the cemetery administration
Esslingen (FHV 206): “ 15 unidentified bodies from Hailfingen ... 13.
12. 1944 ... collective urn grave 5...” (crematorium of Ebershaldenfriedhof cemetery).
[15]AMAC Nat 68/3 quoted after Steegmann,
Struthof, p. 137, the deaths at
Dautmergen were not listed before March 12th, 1945 (in Schömberg).
[16]Eric Breuer, Les
Miracles.
[17]Whether there were more prisoners like Meir
Kalmanowicz who had not been listed in the Nummernbuch and who would
need to be added to the 600 remains unclear.
[18]BAL B 162/4349. Bl. 401 and Bl. 392.
[19]Monika Walther-Becker, Das
Lager Hailfingen.
[20]Dorothee Wein/Volker Mall/Harald Roth, Spuren.
[21]Mordechai Ciechanower, „Der Dachdecker“.
[22]Marga Griesbach, „... ich kann immer noch das Elend spüren...“.
[23]Ortsarchiv Rottenburg-Wendelsheim, C 160-1 nr.351 (AZ 9400).