Arbeitsdorf ("work-village") was a
Nazi concentration camp in
Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersleben 1942.
History and the purpose of the camp
In 1936, a Czech engineer by the name of
Ferdinand Porsche
Ferdinand Porsche (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was an Austrian-German automotive engineer and founder of the Porsche AG. He is best known for creating the first gasoline–electric hybrid vehicle (Lohner–Porsche), the Volksw ...
designed a
prototype of a car that would be affordable enough for all Germans to buy. He then showed his idea to the then
dictator
A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in tim ...
of Germany,
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
. Hitler liked his idea and ordered the manufacture of the car which was known as the KDF-Wagen or later known as the
Volkswagen
Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...
vehicle.
With Hitler's approval, Porsche and his business partner
Albert Speer set up a factory in
Fallersleben
Fallersleben is a part (''Ortsteil'') of the City of Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, with a population of 11,269 (as of 2010). The village of Fallersleben was first mentioned in 942 under the name of ''Valareslebo''. Fallersleben became a city ...
, a town northeast of the city of
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
, and because of the war, all production from this camp was to be used for military purposes only. In 1942, Porsche and Speer started a project to see how they could use concentration camp inmates for cheaper, and large-scale production of their cars, in order to benefit their industry. The prisoners of Arbeitsdorf were skilled workforce used for construction tasks, building a casting plant and other facilities and receiving better captivity conditions in return.
So on 8 April 1942 a new concentration camp, Arbeitsdorf, was opened with 800 inmates from the
Neuengamme concentration camp
Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...
. The camp commands of Neuengamme and Arbeitsdorf were united in the person of
Martin Weiss Martin Weiss may refer to:
* Martin Weiss (diplomat) (born 1962), Austrian diplomat and Ambassador of Austria to the United States
* Martin Weiss (Nazi official) (1903–1984), commander of Vilna Ghetto and the ''Ypatingasis būrys'' mass murder k ...
, the camp commander of Neuengamme at this time. On 26 April 1942 inmates from the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoner ...
and on 23 June inmates from
Buchenwald
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...
arrived. Mid-July 1942 camp commander became
Wilhelm Schitli
Wilhelm Schitli (26 June 1912 in Osnabrück – missing in March 1945) was a German SS-''Hauptsturmführer'' and '' Schutzhaftlagerführer'' in the Neuengamme concentration camp.
Life
In 1934, Schitli, a member of the SS, was a member of the g ...
, former
Schutzhaft-camp commander in Neuengamme.
[Website of the camp memorial Neuengamme](_blank)
Closing and the death toll of the camp
On 11 October 1942, six months after the camp was first established, production of the vehicles was stopped and the camp was closed. A minimum of six prisoners perished at Arbeitsdorf. These six deaths are officially listed as suicide, heart attack or accident.
Memorial
The museum Stadtschloss Wolfsburg has a documentation about the Nazi victims with its own exhibition of the slave workers at the Volkswagen factory. (Stadtmuseum Schloss Wolfsburg, Schlossstraße 8, 38448 Wolfsburg)
See also
*
List of subcamps of Neuengamme
Below is an incomplete list of SS subcamps of Neuengamme camp system operating from 1938 until 1945. The Neuengamme concentration camp established by the SS in Hamburg, Germany, became a massive Nazi concentration camp complex using prisoner for ...
*
Glossary of Nazi Germany
This is a list of words, terms, concepts and slogans of Nazi Germany used in the historiography covering the Nazi regime.
Some words were coined by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party members. Other words and concepts were borrowed and appropriated, ...
*
The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
*
List of concentration and internment camps
This is a list of internment and concentration camps, organized by country. In general, a camp or group of camps is designated to the country whose government was responsible for the establishment and/or operation of the camp regardless of the c ...
*
List of Nazi concentration camps
According to the ''Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos'', there were 23 main concentration camps (german: Stammlager), of which most had a system of satellite camps. Including the satellite camps, the total number of Nazi concentration camps that ...
*
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as con ...
*
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
*
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
Notes
External links
US Holocaust Memorial Museum WebsiteWebsite of the camp memorial Neuengamme
{{Authority control
Nazi concentration camps in Germany
Subcamps of Neuengamme