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The last days of April 1945. Allied troops are fast approaching the administrative district of Landsberg. In the concentration camps situated around Landsberg and Kaufering, the SS are preparing for the “evacuation” of the prisoners. They are to be sent on their final journey of suffering. First in the direction of Dachau, and then onwards towards the Alps. No prisoner should be left alive to fall into American hands. This “evacuation march” which began with these concentration camp prisoners would go down in history as the “Dachau death march”. Until this day, there has never been an official tally of the number of Jewish prisoners who were beaten to death, shot, or died of hunger and exhaustion during those final days of April.
The prevailing mood among the guards in concentration camps around Landsberg is tense and edgy. New orders are constantly being issued and updated. This leads to uncertainty and confusion among the camp guards – many would like to abscond and make their way home – but the SS is everywhere. Deserters are court martialled and executed. It is the end of April 1945. For the past several days air raid warnings have sounded “every two to three hours."
The prisoners listen tensely to the continual dull hum of the allied bombers flying overhead in giant formations towards Munich and “the detonation of the bombs” can be heard as they are dropped on Bavaria´s capital city. Munich is burning. The blood red sky can be seen as far as Landsberg. During the last weeks, food rations have become “smaller and smaller” and a terrible hunger reigns amongst the already emaciated prisoners. Hundreds of weakened prisoners fall victim to a typhus epidemic. Some of the guards suddenly become friendlier, there is a change in attitude, they know what is coming. Rumours and the “latest news” circulate amongst the prisoners. Time and again it is whispered, the liberators are near. Between hope and despondency, the prisoners experience a roller coaster of emotions. Will they be able to survive on starvation rations for a few more days? Is there a chance of survival or will they all be killed? Many could not or did not want to imagine that freedom was possible. They had gone through so much in the last few years, experienced too much suffering.
During these days, Sturmbannführer Otto Förschner received orders to “evacuate” the prisoners of the concentration camps of Landsberg and Kaufering. “The Landsberg Jews should be marched to Dachau.” The Reichsführer of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, insisted that “no Jew should be allowed to fall alive into the hands of enemy troops.” Sturmbannführer at the time, Otto Förschner, was the camp commandant with responsibility over all the camps of Landberg and Kaufering and was responsible for implementing the “evacuation.” The command headquarters were situated at Camp 1, in the west of Landsberg, near Iglinger Strasse. Today nothing of this camp remains, all vestiges have disappeared without trace. It has been levelled and cemented over. Where the camp once stood there is now a modern industrial estate.
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Kaufering Concentration Camp IV near Hurlach |
According to Förschner, “orders were received to dissolve the camp between the 24th and 27th April 1945.” All Jewish prisoners still capable of walking had to assemble and were marched out of the camp under strict guard. Endless columns of humanity trudged through the old town of Landsberg. The ragged prisoners were a terrible sight, “they were just skin and bone.”.
The last days of April were still bitterly cold and the prisoners were frozen to the bone. They had only their thin prison uniforms and many marched barefoot or wore primitive wooden shoes. Their feet were swollen and raw. In some cases the cold caused their skin to split open. This quickly led to large wounds which went septic. However the guards showed no pity and drove the prisoners mercilessly onwards.
"Thousands and thousands of them in their striped concentration camp uniforms toiled up the Neue Bergstrasse.”
The citizens of Landberg turned away their faces in horror at the sight of these marching columns. However for most of them the prisoners were a familiar sight. During the previous months the “Jews in their grey and blue striped uniforms” had become a daily sight in Landsberg as they worked in and around the city. They could be seen falling desperately on dustbins, greedily stuffing vegetable peelings in their mouths, degraded by hunger. Jewish women, their heads shaven, were put to work cleaning the railway station, whilst in prestigious restaurants prisoners peeled potatoes. A large labour detail made up of Jewish prisoners repaired the cobblestones in the city, the area cordoned off by guards. During this time anyone who needed cheap labour, and who did not balk at the idea, could requisition prisoners from the concentration camp commandos. For a small fee the SS would make the required number of prisoners and guards available. On one condition: “They may not receive anything, nothing to eat, nothing to drink, absolutely nothing.” The Jewish prisoners, emaciated, crawling with lice, “degraded”, robbed of their human dignity, who for the last few months had been regularly seen on the Landsberger Strasse, in the eyes of many citizens conformed exactly to the image of the “Judenschweine (jewish pigs) ” which for many years had been portrayed in national socialist propaganda. “They are worse than animals! They should be gotten rid of!” These words and other similar sentiments reached the ears of the then 14 year old Max Rieder as he witnessed the Jews being marched through the old town of Landsberg.
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Landsberg April 1945: Death March heading towards Dachau |
And so it was during the last days of April, 1945. Not everyone sympathised with the wretched people driven through the city. But they were scared, very scared, of the allied forces drawing ever nearer, and how they would react to the many concentration camps in the area.
As the prisoners left their camps, “each one received half a kilo of bread and a can of tinned meat” as provisions for the march, wrote survivor, Levi Shalit, in his book “Beyond Dachau.” These provisions “had to last for the entire three day journey.” Two thousand prisoners assembled on the parade ground.:
“Forward march! The gates were opened and those too ill to march peered out at us from their barracks. What fate awaited them? No one knew. The guards left their watchtowers. Everything was packed, everything in flux. A last glance back at the camp. Was this reality or a dream? The gates remained open – we could leave the camp! Behind us we heard dynamite explosions. Quickly a few guards caught up with us…so this is how the sick would meet their end. We marched through the city of Landsberg am Lech. It had been almost a year since the last time we had seen a city and free people. Even though they were Germans, like patients who have been released from hospital, for a moment we wanted to smile at them. Our feet were walking on streets made by people, and the feeling of walking on the cobblestones gave strength to our weak knees. But the faces of the passers-by were fixed and rigid. They looked straight through us."
The march of the prisoners of the Landsberg concentration camps was to last for much longer. The sufferings which they would have to endure in these last days of April would be almost unbearable. What began during these days in and around Landsberg would later go down in history as the “Dachau Death March.”
Meanwhile the SS began to definitely clear the Kaufering/Landsberg concentration camp complex, loading all remaining prisoners, the sick and those unable to walk, into trains and lorries. “Line up, everyone who can, line up,” screamed the guards, driving the prisoners forward. Time was of the essence as the Allies were very close. By this time a human life was not worth much, especially the life of a Jew. They were beaten, hit, murdered.
Concentraition camp Kaufering I was cleared in three transports, on April 24, 1945, on April 25, 1945 and on April 26, 1945. Some of the prisoners had been transferred from surrounding camps to the main camp in order to be organised into these transports. Rapportführer Tempel was responsible for the entire action and carried out his role with indescribable brutality. Later, in the Dachau Trials, eyewitness Moses Berger, was to describe simply how events unfolded in Camp I on April 26, 1945
“Shortly before liberation, we were transferred to Camp 1. When we arrived at Camp 1, Wilhelm Tempel and other SS men were standing there, impelling us to leave the train faster. The entire group who arrived at the camp was made up of the sick. Those who were not so critically ill disembarked immediately. The seriously ill were not so fast and took more time. Tempel went over and kicked them with his feet and whipped them with a cable. As I tried to help my brother out of the train, Tempel hit him with such force that his face became distorted. The next day my brother died. (…) Those in Camp 1 who still remained in their huts were dragged out. I know of four men who tried to hide in the women´s block. They were caught by Tempel and driven out at gunpoint. He shot two of them on the parade ground, where I was lying. Their bodies remained lying there on the parade ground."
The whole camp was in an uproar. The guards were nervous and at command headquarters, mountains of files were being destroyed. The prisoners sensed that the American troops were near, advancing quickly towards Landsberg. Some of the prisoners wanted to stay in their huts and wait for the arrival of their liberators. Wilhelm Tempel acted with brutal force and shot many of them. The executions started at 6am in the morning and continued late into the night. Abraham Rosenfeld, a witness for the prosecution gives this account:
“That night they began to liquidate Camp 1. Tempel came running out with a stick in his hand, shouting: “Everyone out of the barracks and to the loading station!” The people did not want to come out. So they sent in all the Aryan Capos and the block chiefs. They were supposed to beat the prisoners until they all came out of their huts. My friend and I left our hut and went to the edge of the parade ground, close to the women´s camp. Lying on the ground some distance away we saw a piece of bread. My friend bent to pick up the bread. Tempel pulled out his pistol and shot him dead.”.
Shis, and similar accounts, is how former Jewish concentration camp prisoners describe the “evacuation” of Camp 1. The prisoners sensed that liberation was near and tried everything to avoid being transported until the very last minute. They knew that in the eyes of the SS, their lives were “not worth a straw.” Many hid, played dead or tried to conceal themselves, like the Polish Jew, Marc Weinberg, who managed to evade the SS search parties by burying himself under a pile of corpses.
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Kaufering Camp IV: US Troops liberate the camp near Hurlach |
One of the most impressive and moving accounts from this time comes from former Jewish prisoner Nr. 124454, Dr Albert Menasche. He describes his experience of the final days in Camp 1 in Landsberg, and its liberation by American troops:
“Under the glare of spotlights, we were forced to line up on the parade ground in rows of five. We then entered the dark earthen huts in groups of fifty. We settled down on the lice infested straw. Where were we? Nobody knew. Although we were exhausted from our journey and almost famished, we engaged in endless commentaries. Above us we heard a wonderful melody – the sound of American bombers, going about their work of destruction. Who knows, maybe tomorrow we would be free? We were animated by a violent force which distracted us from our hunger. We spent the night almost in a daze. As dawn broke, we quickly arose and walked over to the "Informationsquartier", where we discovered that we were in Camp 1 and that the Americans were no longer far away.
Others maintained that it was General Leclerc, the commander of the French Army who was advancing quickly in our direction. Whilst we waited there was not much else to do except go back to “bed”. We needed to preserve our strength as our soup would only come at about noon and we had had no food for a considerable number of hours. We began again to study our homemade map. Over our heads, American aeroplanes flew in a constant stream. Air raid alarms no longer sounded. (…) At around 15h00 the bell which usually called us to the parade ground was sounded again. The whole camp was to be emptied. Immediately hundreds of outstretched arms clamoured to reach the block chief’s soup. Ten of us managed to reach it. I was lucky and was able to get two handfuls of broth.
Whilst the starving were fighting over soup in the barracks, the prisoners began to assemble outside. The sick were laid on the side. All those still able to walk were marched to the railway station in rows of five. My nephew and I decided not to report to the parade ground. We were certain that the Allies were very close, It was just a matter of hiding ourselves for a few more hours. We locked ourselves in the latrine where we stayed until 19h00. When we heard new noises outside, we risked going out. However we had hardly gone two steps when an SS man, whip in hand, commanded us to follow him. Where was he taking us? We halted at a wagon that was full of sick prisoners. Thirty young girls who were suffering from Typhus were lying inside. Ten of our comrades were already spanned in front of the wagon, ready to pull it. We joined them and set off in the direction of the railway station. It was almost night. On a snow covered road, blocked by retreating military vehicles, we pushed and pulled the wagon the four kilometres to the nearest station (Kaufering). The congestion there was indescribable. Thousands of people were attempting to find a place on the cattle trucks. We left the sick lying on the grass. Our guard commanded us to return to the camp to fetch more people. We could hardly stand. We had not received anything to eat for more than nine hours. However, driven by his whip, we gathered our strength and began to drag the wagon back. By now it was completely dark. We reached the camp at about 23h00, to collect our next load. But at the camp gate we were told to stop. It was already too late – the Americans were too near. Half an hour later there were no longer any guards to be seen. It seemed that the Germans had left us to our fate.
All the prisoners, many of whom were gravely ill, came out into the open. Immediately the plundering of the kitchen and the depots began. It was a surreal scene. Hundreds of skeletal figures fought each other under the shadow of night. A typhus patient fought a living corpse, who somehow found the strength to defend himself, over a piece of bread. Many of the sick collapsed, never to rise again. The ground was littered with the dying. Wailing and groaning filled the air, but no one paid attention. Humans, as such, no longer existed. We were nothing but an abandoned herd of wild animals. Only one thing drove us: Hunger! We had only one aim, to eat, so that we could live a few hours longer. Life and freedom awaited us. The hours passed like a nightmare. At the first light of dawn, a calm descended. We were ashamed to look at ourselves., At our feet lay hundreds of dead. It was those afflicted with typhus, who had dragged themselves outside to die as free men, under the starry sky.
We appointed a few prisoners to cook a soup from the few ingredients left in the kitchen..
At about 11h00 the soup was ready. Whilst we were sitting in our blocks, eating, we heard a terrible explosion. The windowpanes shattered and one of the barrack walls collapsed. What had happened? We ran outside and stopped dead in our tracks at the scene that awaited us. Everything was in flames. Maybe as a final parting gift the Germans were burning our camp down. Once again it was each man for himself. Still accompanied by my nephew I dragged myself to the entrance to the camp which faced the street. We were lucky enough to find a ditch where we thankfully took cover. A Hungarian woman was already in there and, unlikely as it sounds, she had three loaves of bread with her. With threats we finally convinced her to surrender one of the loaves to us. It was a real feast. Above us, bullets whistled overhead, but we paid them no attention. Eventually we decided to emerge from the ditch. I let out a cry that was barely human. There, directly in front of me, was an American tank, shooting in the direction of the forest. From all directions, German soldiers, their hands raised in surrender, crawled out of their dirty holes, to give themselves up. Hundreds of cries echoed mine. We threw ourselves onto the road. The American soldiers motioned for us to stay back, but no one listened. What did we care about danger at a moment like this? We stormed towards them. They repeated their directions, using their hands and eyes – they begged us, pleaded with us to stay back. We were hindering them from unblocking the road. Then they saw us close up and they stared in shock. They asked themselves whether the day of Judgement had arrived, and if we were the resurrection of the dead. The Americans finally finished their job. Not a single German was now in sight. They then came towards us to greet us. They offered us chocolate, candy and beer. For the first time in two years I was a free man, talking to free men. Yes, it is true! Prisoner number 124454 was dead. Dr. Albert Menasche was reborn".
The liberators were horrified and appalled at the conditions they found in the Landsberg concentration camp complex. Most of them had never seen anything like it in their lives. They assisted where they could and cared for the survivors. The starving and sick were admitted to local hospitals and clinics. There were many however who died shortly after liberation. Their stomachs could no longer digest food and they were doomed to die.
Many international delegations and high ranking politicians visited the former camps during this time. The gaze of the world was on Landsberg.
The War Crimes Investigation Commission 6823 of the US 7th Army, under the command of Col. David Chavez began its enquiries as early as April 30, 1945. In its final report the commission found, amongst other things, that: “Taking into account the brutalities, the starvation and the sickness, the conditions in the 11 camps in the vicinity of Landsberg and Kaufering were the worst.”
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Kaufering Concentration Camp IV: The dead are buried |
We do not know exactly how many Jewish prisoners were murdered during the dissolution of the concentration camps around Landsberg and Kaufering during the end of April 1945. In April 1949, Dr Auerbach, the Advocate General of the Bavarian State Office for Reparation (Bayerischen Landesamts für Wiedergutmachung), attempted to determine how many Jewish prisoners were murdered in the Kaufering/Landsberg camp complex. The Landsberger Amtsblatt and the Landsberger Nachrichten (both newspapers) asked citizens of the city and the Landberg municipality and former concentration camp prisoners, to provide details “relating to the deceased concentration camp inmates in the municipality of Landsberg.” On April 23, 1949, Dr Auerbach sent the city of Landberg a “summary of the camp capacities and death toll of the camps around Landberg.” According to this summary, in the 11 concentration camps around Landsberg and Kaufering, 44,457 inmates were murdered during the span of 10 months. This number included “4000 victims who were shot, beaten to death or succumbed due to weakness during the evacuation marches in the city and municipality.” These figures produced a wave of indignation and shock in Landsberg. Dr Auerbach was subjected to a defamation campaign, led in particular by the editor of the “Landsberger Nachrichten", Paul Winkelmayer. “We are talking of at most about 3000 or 4000 deaths” he reported. The mayor at the time, Ludwig Thoma, tried to smooth things over, coming to the defence of the Winkelmayer, who was the party leader of the CSU on the city council. On April 29, 1949 he wrote to Dr Auerbach: “Winkelmayer feels honour bound, as a member of the city council and annalist, to fight for truth and clarity in the interests of the city. If in doing so he sometimes oversteps the mark, I cannot reproach him for it, especially as his motives are pure. His political, as well as his Christian, particularly Catholic attitudes do not allow for any anti-Semitism.”
In the following weeks, under the chairmanship of city councillor Dr Otto Gerbl, a commission was established, tasked with determining the “number of Jewish victims in the municipality of Landsberg.” Eleven people were “in agreement” and stated for the record what they knew about the concentration camp complex of Kaufering/Landsberg. These included only one person who had been a Jewish prisoner in Landsberg. On June 3, 1949, the commission held a concluding meeting and “after a joint review of the available documents”, announced the “number of Jewish victims in the municipal area of Landsberg.” The commission, which was made up of the then mayor Thoma, district commissioner Dr. Gerbl, , Abraham Pelmann who represented the Jewish Committee, the representative of the Bavarian Relief Organisation Curt Klemann and the editor Paul Winkelmayer, agreed on a figure of 14,500 as the number of those who had “perished” in the Landsberg camps.
IThe report, presented by Dr Gerbl, stated amongst other things that: “It does not seem plausible that 4000 people were shot and beaten to death, or died due to weakness during the evacuation marches in Landsberg city and municipal area. If so, then where are these 4000 people buried?” According to this “official estimate” and assessment, not a single prisoner was murdered during the dissolution of the concentration camps and the subsequent “evacuation marches.”
For many decades it seemed that Dr Auerbach was right with his accusation, saying “how can one deny the dead copses lying in their graves the right to be considered dead .” For more than six decades, these “estimates” were not checked or amended.
The dissent, the arguments and disagreements about the actual death figures in the concentration camp complex of Landsberg/Kaufering extend ultimately into the 21st century as the sources for for a well-founded historical assessment are lacking.
After evaluation of the sources available to us today relating to the number of murdered concentration camp prisoners in Landsberg/Kaufering, it is neither Dr Auerbach´s figure of 44,457 as stated in his Zusammenstellung der Lagerstärken und Todesziffern der Lager um Landsberg" (Summary of the camp capacities and number of deaths in the camps around Landsberg), nor Paul Winkelmayer´s estimation of “3000 to 4000 deaths at most” which is scientifically verifiable. Neither is it the “official estimation” of the commission led by the district commissioner Dr Gerbl, which agreed on a total of 14,500 “Jewish victims in the Landsberg municipal area.”
With our present level of knowledge we know that in ten months, approximately 23 000 prisoners were transported to the Kaufering camp complex. We know the names of about 6 500 prisoners who did not survive. ** Their bodies lie in the mass graves which surround Kaufering and Landsberg. Those “transferred” to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other concentration camps and murdered there, as well as those who died during the death marches are not included in these figures. ***
*Roletscheck, Gerhard: Auswertung Häftlingslisten Stand August 2015. Häftlingszahlen und Totenzahlen im Wandel der Jahre – von Mutmaßungen zu Fakten. In: Landsberger Geschichtsblätter 114. Jahrgang, Eigenverlag Historischer Verein Landsberg am Lech, 2016, Seite 109 – 114; Gerhard Roletscheck erwähnt als Ergebnis seiner Auswertungen 6334 namentlich bekannte Tote.
.** Eiber, Ludwig erwähnt 6091 namentlich bekannte Tote. Aus gutem Grund thematisiert er die Frage der Verläßlichkeit der SS-Buchführung und weist korrekterweise auf die unvollständige Quellenlage zu Verlegungen in andere KZ-Außenlager, nach Dachau oder andere Konzentrationslager hin. Hinzu kommen Imponderabilien während der Räumung der Lager, der Todesmärsche und nach der Befreiung. (Ludwig Eiber: Hitlers Bunker - Hitlers Gefangene. Die KZ-Lager bei Landsberg. In: Landsberg in der Zeitgeschichte - Zeitgeschichte in Landsberg. Herausgegeben von Volker Dotterweich und Karl Filser; München 2010, Seite 311 - 349 / Seite 335 – 336).
*** Sigel, Robert: Häftlingsgesellschaft. Das Häftlingsregister des Konzentrationslagers Dachau – ein historisches Soziogramm, http://www.gedenkstaettenpaedagogikbayern.de/haeftlingsgesellshaft.htm (15.03.2008) F IV; aufgerufen 30. Januar 2019
| **** First publication of the essay in the version of 1993 published in: Landsberg im 20. Jahrhundert - Themenhefte zur Landsberger Zeitgeschichte - Heft 2: Todesmarsch und Befreiung - Landsberg im April 1945: Das Ende des Holocaust in Bayern - ISBN: 3-9803775-1-2e |
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