NKVD special camp Nr. 7 was a NKVD special camp that operated in Weesow until August 1945 and in

Sachsenhausen 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 prisoners ...

from August 1945 until the spring of 1950. It was used by the Soviet occupying forces to detain those viewed as

enemy of the people The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are ac ...

by the soviet regime. In August 1945, the Special Camp Nr. 7 was moved to Sachsenhausen, the area of the former Nazi

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 ...

. Under the NKVD, Nazi functionaries were held in the camp, as were political prisoners and inmates sentenced by the Soviet Military Tribunal. By 1948, Sachsenhausen, now renamed Special Camp No. 1, was the largest of three special camps in the

Soviet occupation zone The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a ...

. The 60,000 people interned over five years included 6,000 German officers transferred from Western Allied camps. After the fall of

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

it was possible to do excavations in the former camps. In Sachsenhausen the bodies of 12,500 victims were found, mostly children, adolescents and elderly people. By the time the camp closed in the spring of 1950, at least 12,000 had died of malnutrition and disease.

Notable Inmates

Heinrich George Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz (9 October 1893 – 25 September 1946), better known as Heinrich George (), was a German stage and film actor. Career Weimar Republic George is noted for having spooked the young Bertolt Brecht in his first ...

, actor (1893–1946) * Hans Heinze, psychiatrist and eugenicist (''

Aktion T4 (German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post- war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address o ...

'') (1895–1983) * Giwi Margwelaschwili, author (1927–2020) *

Karl August Nerger Karl August Nerger (25 February 1875 – 12 January 1947) was a naval officer of the Imperial German Navy in World War I, who achieved fame and recognition during the war for his command of the auxiliary cruiser '' SMS Wolf''. Nerger was born ...

, Admiral (1875–1947) *

Otto Nerz Otto Nerz (21 October 1892 – 18 April 1949) was a German footballer player and manager and the first head coach of the Germany national team between 1923 and 1936. Nerz was born in Hechingen, Province of Hohenzollern, son of a rope shopkeep ...

, football coach and SA officer (1892–1949) * Eduard Stadtler (1886–1945) * Ernst Schlange (1888–1947) * Emil Unfried (1892–1949)

External links

References

{{Authority control NKVD special camps