SA guards in Emslandlager II (Aschendorfermoor)

[Helmut0815]

The Emslandlager II in which the infamous Willi Herold committed his brutal war crimes in April 45 was a labour camp under supervision by the NS Ministry of Justice. Unlike in the KZs the camp inmates of Aschendorfermoor were officially convicted criminals, of course lots of political prisoners among them, later also Wehrmacht deserters.
Interestingly the camp which was established in 1935 was not only guarded by judicial prison officers but also by SA men until the liberation in 1945.
Does anyone know why the SA and not the SS?


best regards


Helmut

[history1]

The Emslandlager II in which [...] Willi Herold committed [...] war crimes in April 45 was a labour camp

It wasn´t a labour camp but a camp for detainees.

[...] Unlike in the KZs the camp inmates of Aschendorfermoor were officially convicted criminals, of course lots of political prisoners among them, later also Wehrmacht deserters. [...]

The info from the Esterwegen Memorial reads quite different:

Bis Kriegsbeginn waren Menschen inhaftiert, die vom NS-Regime aus politischen, rassistischen, sozialen oder religiösen Gründen verfolgt wurden. Hinzu kam eine weitaus größere Gruppe von Gefangenen, die für kriminelle Delikte verurteilt worden waren. Von Juli 1937 bis Mai 1940 zog die Zentralverwaltung aus allen im Emsland bestehenden Lagern die politischen Gefangenen in Aschendorfermoor zusammen. Davon waren im gesamten Zeitraum etwa 2.200 Gefangene betroffen. Anschließend bestand fast die Hälfte der Gefangenen aus von Wehrmachtgerichten verurteilten, ehemaligen Soldaten.
Source: https://www.gedenkstaette-esterwegen.de ... moor.html

Translation:

Until the beginning of the war, people were imprisoned who were persecuted by the Nazi regime for political, racist, social or religious reasons. There was also a much larger group of prisoners convicted of criminal offenses. From July 1937 until May 1940 the central administration gathered from all the camps in Emsland the political prisoners in Aschendorfermoor. About 2,200 prisoners were affected throughout the period. Subsequently, almost half of the prisoners consisted of former soldiers convicted by Wehrmacht courts.

BTW, when you write things like "Unlike in the KZs the camp inmates of Aschendorfermoor were officially convicted criminals" you seem not to know that people transfered to concentration camps were often also convicted by courts and deported and imprisoned for protective custody (Schutzhaft).
And quite funny that you mention the brutal Willi Herold but not the brutal bombing by the RAF which also caused dozens of victims, only weeks before the end of WWII (of course you don´t read about that in the English Wikipedia).
Strange, now even the brutal RAF bombing from April 3rd and 4th 1945 came in my mind in which they killed 1300 inmates of the KL Mittelbau subcamp Boelcke Barracks.
Was that really necassary? Colateral damage I guess.

[Helmut0815]

The Emslandlager II in which [...] Willi Herold committed [...] war crimes in April 45 was a labour camp

It wasn´t a labour camp but a camp for detainees.

[/quote]

Where the detainees were forced to hard labour in the peat bogs.

BTW, when you write things like "Unlike in the KZs the camp inmates of Aschendorfermoor were officially convicted criminals" you seem not to know that people transfered to concentration camps were often also convicted by courts and deported and imprisoned for protective custody (Schutzhaft).

What I wanted to say is that the inmates in Aschendorfermoor served their prison sentences and were not imprisoned for so called "protective custody" (Schutzhaft) as in the KZs.

So back from nitpicking to my initial question: Why the SA, in this case SA men from SA-Pionierstandarte 10? I have never heard before that SA men serviced as camp guards after the Night of the long Knives.


regards


Helmut

[Hans1906]

Helmut,

what does anyone here in the forum really "know" about the "Emslandlager", besides reading something about all this, nothing!

How can anybody know at all, what do you know from your own neighborhood, the departed children, starving to death,
just behind the corner, injected to death, just a few kilometers away from ones own house...

Pure horror, close by, have you ever been there, fathers and grandfathers beaten to death, by their former neighbor.
Killing all these people like a cat, against a wall.

Makes you sick, forever, no excuse, once there, you will never forget it.

Nobody has to excuse himself, no mercy, no sorrow, just go there...

[steve248]

Hans,
Keep calm. Ranting about the Emsland camps does not get you anywhere.
In answer to some of your questions.
First, the Emsland camps were in the British Zone. Did the British prosecute any of the guards - I can not see any in the list of British war crimes trials. Why? All the Allied forces occupying Germany did not prosecute German-on-German crimes. They only prosecuted German-on-Allied nationals' crimes. But the British certainly investigated the camps and you can see them listed in UK National Archives, record group/class list WO 309 series. There are at least 8 investigations in British War Crimes Group/North West Europe files which are open to researchers.
The Emsland investigations and prosecutions were only handled by West German courts and you probably need to take this up with Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg.
Second, I have no idea whether the British (or American) airforces bombed Esterwegen.
Third. The British probably did bomb KL Mittelbau-Dora (Nordhausen) because it was producing the airframes and components for the "Wunderwaffen" (V-rocket systems that landed in Britain causing devastation).
Fourth, some of the posters here (present or former) may have visited the Gedenkstätte but unless the non-German posters here are not visiting Germany they are unlikely to visit.... but they may share your sentiments.

[Hans1906]

Steve,

local history, also about the so called "Emslandlager" is different...

The grandchildren have almost all passed away, and the great-grandchildren do not want to report about it.

The grandfather of our school friend B. served as a guard in the Emslandlager, in any position, you might imagine.
SA, SS, Wachmann, whatever, all this makes no sense anymore, after all these years.
The former guard in the "Emslandlager" is dead and gone, decades ago.

Family will never talk about all this, ashamed, history, whatever...
Not my business, to research any further.

Hans1906

* At some special "point", there are no more answers anymore, and I am very sorry about all this, what more to write or mention about
all this, I have no answer...

** What do any Austrians know about the camps, no more than they have read somewhere...
All this happend here in the neighbourhood, just a few kilometers away.

[history1]

Helmut,

what does anyone here in the forum really "know" about the "Emslandlager", besides reading something about all this, nothing!
[...]

So historians don´t/can´t know about camps located somewhere else because the don´t live in the area? What an absurd argument.
It seems you´re underestamating the knowledge of the forum members.

[history1]

Steve,
[...]
** What do any Austrians know about the camps, no more than they have read somewhere...
All this happend here in the neighbourhood, just a few kilometers away.

As I´m the only Austrian in this thread so far, you´re without doubt referring to my person.
I´ll tell you what I know: I speak Polish, Slovakian, English and German fluently. Visited the memorials of Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Stutthof, Dachau, Theresienstadt, etc. several times including their archives. Did proofread and correct misinformations published by Yad Vashem (added corrections and additional informations to 1000 photos from their photo archive as exampel), the USHMM and the Auschwitz Memorial, etc.. Call fellow Holoaust scholars worldwide my friends, and study the Holocaust since a couple decades. My bookshelfs contain ~300 books (scientific only, plus a handful novels I bought as teenager) alone about the Holocaust. Further ~ 100 about the WWII and uniforms in general.
And you dare to state "What do any Austrians know about the camps"?

[Puck]

probably interesting https://repositorium.ub.uni-osnabrueck. ... thesis.pdf

Regards Puck

[Hans1906]

history1,

I'm not questioning your extensive knowledge, why should I ?
The small difference is as always the very local and personal relation to many topics, not only here in the forum.

Just as little as I can know about the local austrian subtleties, you can't know about the regional North German subtleties, because we simply lack the respective regional reference.
What I could contribute to this topic are memories from the families of friends, from the grandfather to the son, and the grandson passed on, if at all.

The two grandsons of the former guard in the Emsland camps are not willing to publish any information at all, one just have to accept that.
That is what I was very keen to say on this subject.
And yes, you should have seen these places once, with your own eyes, many of these places.

Hans

[Hans1906]

Good morning Puck,

thank you very much for the link to the *.pdf file.
Ziviler Strafvollzug für die Wehrmacht. Militärgerichtlich Verurteilte in den Emslandlagern 1939 - 1945

317 pages, 2.36 Megabyte

Excellent!

Hans