Neue Bremm (german: Gedenkstätte Gestapo-Lager Neue Bremm) was a Nazi torture camp in

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is S ...

, set up in 1943 by the Gestapo intentionally with no oversight from other institutions. It was designed to break prisoners who were not destined for immediate death. Some prisoners were held only for a few weeks, others, much longer; both men, and women. During that time they were put to work in slave-labour commandos and broken. Those who survived purposeful starvation were sent on to

Nazi concentration camp 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 concen ...

s such as Buchenwald. Approximately 20,000 men and women passed through Neue Bremm, including Jews from occupied Eastern Europe as well as Frenchmen, Belgians, Britons and Italians. However, the total number of casualties remains unknown. Short term torture camps like Neue Bremm were called ''Straflager''. The torture is reported to have included hopping crouched for 6 to 8 hours a day. Further, they were starved and deprived of sleep. The ''Straflager'' camps held the same pains as the other Nazi concentration camps in

German-occupied Europe German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

but with corporal punishment compacted into just days. After the war, the French military put dozens of Neue Bremm personnel, including the commandant, Fritz Schmoll, on trial for war crimes. A number of them, including Schmoll, were found guilty and executed. Others were given prison sentences.

References

* Pierre d'Harcourt (1967), ''The Real Enemy''. London: Longmans. . {{Authority control Nazi concentration camps in Germany Buildings and structures in Saarbrücken Gestapo