Natzweiler-Struthof was a

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 ...

located in the

Vosges Mountains The Vosges ( , ; german: Vogesen ; Franconian and gsw, Vogese) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single ...

close to the villages of

Natzweiler Natzwiller () is a Communes of France, commune in the Bas-Rhin Departments of France, department in Grand Est in northeastern France. History Built in spring 1941 on the territory of the commune, Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp opened fo ...

and Struthof in the

Gau Baden-Alsace The Gau Baden, renamed Gau Baden–Alsace (German: ''Gau Baden-Elsaß'') in March 1941, was a ''de facto'' administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the German state of Baden and, from 1940 onwards, in Alsace (german: Elsaß). B ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, on territory

annexed Annexation (Latin ''ad'', to, and ''nexus'', joining), in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. It is generally held to be an illegal act ...

from France on a basis in 1940. It operated from 21 May 1941 to September 1944, and was the only concentration camp established by the Germans in the territory of pre-war France. The camp was located in a heavily-forested and isolated area at an elevation of . About 52,000 prisoners were estimated to be held there during its time of operation. The prisoners were mainly from the resistance movements in German-occupied territories. It was a labor camp, a transit camp and, as the war went on, a place of execution. Some died from the exertions of their labor and malnutrition – there were an estimated 22,000 deaths at the camp, including its network of subcamps. Many prisoners were moved to other camps; in particular, in 1944 the former head of

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

concentration camp was brought in to evacuate the prisoners of Natzweiler-Struthof to Dachau as the Allied Armies neared. Only a small staff of Nazi SS personnel remained until the camp was liberated by the

French First Army The First Army (french: 1re Armée) was a field army of France that fought during World War I and World War II. It was also active during the Cold War. First World War On mobilization in August 1914, General Auguste Dubail was put in the ch ...

under the command of the U.S. Sixth Army Group on 23 November 1944. The anatomist

August Hirt August Hirt (28 April 1898 – 2 June 1945) was an anatomist with Swiss and German nationality who served as a chairman at the Reich University in Strasbourg during World War II. He performed experiments with mustard gas on inmates at the Natz ...

conducted some of his efforts in making a

Jewish skull collection The Jewish skull collection was an attempt by the Nazis to create an anthropological display to showcase the alleged racial inferiority of the "Jewish race" and to emphasize the Jews' status as ''Untermenschen'' ("sub-humans"), in contrast to the G ...

, whose purpose was to exhibit Jews as racially inferior, at the camp. A documentary movie was made about the 86 named men and women who were killed there for that project. Some of the people responsible for atrocities in this camp were brought to trial after the war ended. The camp is preserved as a museum in memory of those held or killed there. The European Centre of Deported Resistance Members is located at this museum, focusing on those held. The Monument to the Departed stands at the site. The present museum was restored in 1980 after damage by neo-Nazis in 1976. Among notable prisoners, the writer

Boris Pahor Boris Pahor, OMRI (; 26 August 1913 – 30 May 2022) was a Slovene novelist from Trieste, Italy, who was best known for his heartfelt descriptions of life as a member of the Slovenian minority in pre–Second World War increasingly fascist It ...

was interned in Natzweiler-Struthof and wrote his novel ''

Necropolis A necropolis (plural necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'', literally meaning "city of the dead". The term usually im ...

'' based on his experience.

Background

In 1940, Germany invaded and occupied France, including

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

. The region, adjacent to the German border, was chosen for full

Germanization Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In ling ...

and was annexed to

. On 2 July 1940, two weeks after the fall of the nearby city of

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

, an internment camp was set up near

Schirmeck Schirmeck () is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. It is the location of the Alsace-Moselle Memorial museum. The name of the town means "protected place". In Lorraine dialect it is called "Chermec". ...

which existed throughout the war but was never part of the concentration camp system. The Natzweiler-Struthof main camp was established nearby on 1 May 1941, in

, in the

Bruche valley The Bruche () is a river in Alsace, in north-eastern France. It is a left-side tributary of the Ill, and part of the Rhine basin. It is 76.7 km long, and has a drainage basin of 720 km2. The construction of Natzweiler-Struthof was overseen by Hans Hüttig in the spring of 1941, in a heavily-forested and isolated area at an elevation of . The camp operated between 21 May 1941 and the beginning of September 1944, when the SS evacuated the surviving prisoners on a "

death march A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convent ...

" to Dachau, with only a small SS unit keeping the camp's operations. On 23 November 1944, this camp with its small staff was discovered and liberated by the

as part of the U.S. Sixth Army Group, on the same day that the city of Strasbourg was liberated by the Allies. Through 1945, Natzweiler-Struthof had a complex of about 70 subcamps or annex camps. (For the system of subcamps see

List of subcamps of Natzweiler-Struthof The following is a list of subcamps of the Natzweiler-Struthof complex of Nazi concentration camps, and work kommandos from the main camp. These subordinated camps were located on both sides of the German-French border. There were about 50 subca ...

Initial focus and later actions

The total number of prisoners reached 52,000 over the three years, of 32 nationalities. Inmates originated from various countries, including

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, Slovene-speaking parts of Yugoslavia and

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The camp was specially set up for ''

Nacht und Nebel ''Nacht und Nebel'' (German: ), meaning Night and Fog, was a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 targeting political activists and resistance "helpers" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, who were to ...

'' prisoners, in most cases, people of the resistance movements. It was a labor camp and a transit camp, as many prisoners were sent to other Nazi concentration camps before the final evacuation. As the war continued, it became a death camp as well. Some people died from the exertions of the work they had to do, while poorly fed. Deaths are estimated at 22,000 at the main camp and the subcamps. Interned prisoners provided forced labor for the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...

war industry, through contracts with private industry. This was done mainly at the numerous annex camps, some of which were located in mines or tunnels in order to avoid damage from Allied air raids. Work, hunger, darkness and the lack of health care caused many epidemics; mortality rates could reach 80%. Some worked in quarries, but many worked in the arms industry at various subcamps.

Daimler-Benz The Mercedes-Benz Group Aktiengesellschaft, AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It ...

moved its aircraft engine factory from Berlin to a gypsum mine near the

Neckarelz Neckarelz is a suburb of Mosbach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Geography Neckarelz is in northern Baden-Württemberg, between the Odenwald and Kraichgau, at the confluence of the Neckar and Elz rivers. On the other side of the Neckar, are t ...

annex camp. The disused autobahn Engelberg Tunnel in

Leonberg Leonberg (; swg, Leaberg) is a town in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg about to the west of Stuttgart, the state capital. About 45,000 people live in Leonberg, making it the third-largest borough in the rural district (''Landkr ...

, near Stuttgart, was used by the

Messerschmitt Messerschmitt AG () was a German share-ownership limited, aircraft manufacturing corporation named after its chief designer Willy Messerschmitt from mid-July 1938 onwards, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, in partic ...

Aircraft Company which eventually employed 3,000 prisoners in forced labor. Another annex camp at Schörzingen was established in February 1944 for extracting crude oil from oil shale. The total number of prisoners at all of the Natzweiler subcamps was estimated to be 19,000 while there was between 7,000 and 8,000 in the main camp at Natzweiler. Gate of Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp after liberation

Gate of Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp after liberation

Border fence at Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp

French resistance inspects Natzweiler crematorium

The camp held a

crematorium A crematorium or crematory is a venue for the cremation of the dead. Modern crematoria contain at least one cremator (also known as a crematory, retort or cremation chamber), a purpose-built furnace. In some countries a crematorium can also be ...

and a

jury rig In maritime transport terms, and most commonly in sailing, jury-rigged is an adjective, a noun, and a verb. It can describe the actions of temporary makeshift running repairs made with only the tools and materials on board; and the subsequent r ...

ged

gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. Histor ...

outside the main camp, which was not used for mass extermination but for selective extermination, as part of the human experimentation programs, in particular on the problems of fighting a war, like typhus among the troops. Doctors Otto Bickenbach and Helmut Rühl were accused of crimes committed at this camp. Hans Eisele was also stationed in this camp for a time. August Hirt committed suicide in June 1945; his suicide was unknown for many years, and he was tried in absentia in 1953 at Metz for his war crimes, including the Jewish skull collection, begun at Auschwitz, continued at Natzweiler-Struthof, and ended, but not completed, at the Reichs University of Strasbourg. Strenuous work, medical experiments, poor nutrition and mistreatment by the SS guards resulted in most of the documented deaths, although some prisoners were executed directly, by hanging, by gunshot or by gas. The female prisoner-population in the camp was small, and only seven SS women served in Natzweiler-Struthof camp (compared to more than 600 SS men) and 15 in the Natzweiler complex of subcamps. The main duty of the female supervisors in Natzweiler was to guard the few women who came to the camp for medical experiments or to be executed. The camp also trained several female guards who went to the Geisenheim and Geislingen subcamps in western Germany.

Leo Alexander Leo Alexander (October 11, 1905 – July 20, 1985) was an American psychiatrist, neurologist, educator, and author, of History of the Jews in Austria, Austrian-Jewish origin. He was a key medical advisor during the Nuremberg Trials. Alexander wr ...

, the medical advisor at the

Nuremberg trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...

, stated that some children were murdered at Natzweiler-Struthof for the sole purpose of testing poisons for inconspicuous executions of Nazi officials and prisoners. Such executions of took place at

Bullenhuser Damm The Bullenhuser Damm School is located at ''92–94 Bullenhuser Damm'' in the Rothenburgsort section of Hamburg, Germany – the site of the Bullenhuser Damm Massacre, the murder of 20 children and their adult caretakers at the very end of ...

. The camp became a war zone in late summer 1944, and was evacuated in early September 1944. Prior to the evacuation of the camp, 141 prisoners were shot dead on 31 August – 1 September 1944. The 70th anniversary of this execution of those who resisted Nazi occupation was commemorated at the museum in 2014.

Notable prisoners

Four female British SOE agents were executed together on 6 July 1944:

Diana Rowden Diana Hope Rowden (31 January 1915 – 6 July 1944) served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and was an agent for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Rowden was a member of SOE's Acrobat circ ...

Vera Leigh Vera Leigh (17 March 1903 – 6 July 1944) was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive during World War II. Leigh was a member of the SOE's Donkeyman circuit and Inventor sub-circuit in occupied France until ...

, Andrée Borrel and

Sonya Olschanezky Sonia Olschanezky (25 December 1923 – 6 July 1944) was a member of the French Resistance and the Special Operations Executive during World War II. Olschanezky was a member of the SOE's Juggler circuit in occupied France where she operated as a c ...

Brian Stonehouse Brian Julian Warry Stonehouse MBE (29 August 1918 – 2 December 1998) was an English painter and Special Operations Executive agent during World War II. He was born in Torquay, England and had a brother, Dale. When his family moved to Fran ...

of the British SOE and

Albert Guérisse Major General Count Albert-Marie Edmond Guérisse (5 April 1911 – 26 March 1989) was a Belgian Resistance member who organized French and Belgian escape routes for downed Allied pilots during World War II under the alias of Patrick Albert " ...

, a Belgian escape line leader, witnessed the arrival of the four women and the events leading up to their execution and cremation; both men testified to the executions of the four women in post-war trials. The two men were sent to Dachau, where they were liberated. Roger Boulanger writes of the four British SOE women executed under the supervision of Dr. Plaza and Dr. Rhode, in his section on Capital Punishment (Les exécutions capitales), as to the intent of the RSHA of Berlin, Reichssicherheitshauptamt, to have them disappear with no trace, as their names were not recorded as being at this camp. Stonehouse later sketched the four women which aided in their identification.

Charles Delestraint Charles Delestraint (12 March 1879 – 19 April 1945) was a French Army lieutenant general and member of the French Resistance during World War II. He also befriended Charles de Gaulle. Delestraint was killed by the Gestapo in 1945. Early life H ...

, leader of the

Armée Secrète The armée secrète was a French military organization active during World War II. The collective grouped the paramilitary formations of the three most important Gaullist resistance movements in the southern zone. History In mid-1942, in t ...

, was detained at Natzweiler-Struthof, then was executed by the Gestapo in Dachau days before that camp was liberated and the war ended. Henri Gayot, a member of the French Resistance who was interned at Struthof between April and September 1944, documented his ordeal in drawings which are now in the Struthof Concentration Camp Museum. Bishop

Gabriel Piguet Gabriel Piguet (born 24 Feb 1887 at Mâcon, died 3 July 1952 at Clermont-Ferrand) was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, France. Involved in Catholic resistance to Nazism, he was imprisoned in the Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentra ...

, the Roman Catholic

Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Clermont (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Claromontana''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Clermont'') is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the department of Pu ...

, was interned at Natzweiler before being transferred to the

Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp The Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration (in German Pfarrerblock, or Priesterblock) incarcerated clergy who had opposed the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. From December 1940, Berlin ordered the transfer of clerical prisoners held at other camps, ...

. He is honored as a

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sav ...

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

, Israel's Holocaust Memorial, for hiding Jewish children in Catholic boarding schools. Overview Struthof Conc Camp DSC 0367

Two British Royal Air Force airmen ( Flying Officer Dennis H. Cochran, and

Flight Lieutenant Flight lieutenant is a junior commissioned rank in air forces that use the Royal Air Force (RAF) system of ranks, especially in Commonwealth countries. It has a NATO rank code of OF-2. Flight lieutenant is abbreviated as Flt Lt in the India ...

Anthony "Tony" R. H. Hayter) who were involved in "The Great Escape" and murdered by the Gestapo after re-capture, were cremated at Natzweiler-Struthof. British bomber Sergeant Frederic ("Freddie") Habgood was hanged at this camp, after his Lancaster bomber crashed in Alsace on 27 July 1944 and he was betrayed to the Nazis by a local woman. Two died as a result of the crash, three survived as prisoners of war in a camp in Poland, one returned to England with the help of the resistance, and Mr Habgood was hanged on 31 July 1944. His death was acknowledged as a war crime in 1947 and his family was informed, but the most personal evidence of his presence there, a silver bracelet with his name on it, emerged from the soil in July 2018, as an area with flowers was being watered by a volunteer. In his memoirs titled ''Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel'',

Pierre Seel Pierre Seel (16 August 1923 – 25 November 2005) was a gay Holocaust survivor who was conscripted into the German Army and the only French person to have testified openly about his experience of deportation during World War II due to his ...

, who served a sentence at the neighboring camp of

, tells that he took part in the construction of the Struthof concentration camp, in the context of his forced labor tasks. The Slovene novelist

was imprisoned at the camp in 1944. Pahor was later transported to Dachau camp and other camps until finally liberated in

Bergen-Belsen Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentrati ...

. After the war he wrote the novel ''

'' about his experiences in the camp. The novel was later translated into numerous other European languages.

List of personnel

The camp had five commandants and numerous doctors in its history.

Commanders (Commandants)

*''SS-

Hauptsturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Hstuf'') was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organizations such as the SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Hauptsturmführer'' was a mid-level commander and had equivalent seniority to a ...

'' Hans Huttig *''SS-

Sturmbannführer __NOTOC__ ''Sturmbannführer'' (; ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank equivalent to major that was used in several Nazi organizations, such as the SA, SS, and the NSFK. The rank originated from German shock troop units of the First World War ...

Egon Zill Egon Gustav Adolf Zill (28 March 1906 in Plauen – 23 October 1974 in Dachau) was a German ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) ''Sturmbannführer'' and concentration camp commandant. Zill was born in Plauen. The son of a brewer from Plauen, Zill's father was ...

*''SS-Hauptsturmführer''

Josef Kramer Josef Kramer (10 November 1906 – 13 December 1945) was Hauptsturmführer and the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau (from 8 May 1944 to 25 November 1944) and of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (from December 1944 to its liberation on 15 Ap ...

*''SS-Sturmbannführer''

Fritz Hartjenstein Friedrich Hartjenstein (3 July 1905 – 20 October 1954) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. A member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, he served at various Nazi concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen. After the S ...

*''SS-Hauptsturmführer''

Heinrich Schwarz Heinrich Schwarz (14 June 1906 – 20 March 1947) was an SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) and concentration camp officer who served as commandant of Auschwitz III-Monowitz in Nazi-occupied Poland and Natzweiler-Struthof in Alsace-Lorraine. ...

SS Doctors

*''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Kurt aus dem Bruch *''SS-Hauptsturmführer''

Karl Babor Karl Babor (23 August 1918 – 18 January 1964) was an Austrian Nazi, SS doctor of the Third Reich, and officer at Camp Gross-Rosen with the rank of ''Hauptsturmführer''. He was an expert in assassination by syringe of phenol. Biography In ...

*''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Heinz Baumköther *''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Max Blancke *''SS-

Obersturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Ostuf'') was a Nazi Germany paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organisations, such as the SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Obersturmführer'' was first created in 1932 as the result of an expa ...

Franz von Bodmann Franz Hermann Johann Maria Freiherr von Bodmann, sometimes written as Bodman (born 23 March 1908 in Riedlingen, Zwiefaltendorf – died 25 May 1945 in Altenmarkt im Pongau) was a German SS-Obersturmführer who served as a camp physician in several ...

*''SS-Obersturmführer'' Hans Eisele *''SS-Obersturmführer'' Herbert Graefe *''SS-Sturmbannführer'' Richard Krieger *''SS-Obersturmführer'' Georg Meyer *''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Heinrich Plaza *''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Elimar Precht *''SS-Untersturmführer'' Andreas Rett *''SS-

Untersturmführer (, ; short: ''Ustuf'') was a paramilitary rank of the German ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of ''Sturmführer'' which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921. ...

'' Werner Rohde *''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Gerhard Schiedlausky *''SS-Obersturmführer'' Siegfried Schwela

Private firms using inmate labor

The following private firms used Natzweiler-Struthof camp's inmates for labor in their factories: * Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft (

AEG Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG (AEG; ) was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in Berlin as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität'' in 1883 by Emil Rathenau. During the Second World War, AEG ...

) * Adlerwerke AG (formerly

Adlerwerke vorm. Heinrich Kleyer Adlerwerke Kleyerstr 16082007

Adler or Adlerwerke vormal ...

) * Bayerische Motorenwerke AG ( BMW) * Berger * *

AG and its subsidiary Goldfisch * Friedrich Krupp Ironworks * Gruen & Bulfinger * Henkel & Cie *

Heinkel Heinkel Flugzeugwerke () was a German aircraft manufacturing company founded by and named after Ernst Heinkel. It is noted for producing bomber aircraft for the Luftwaffe in World War II and for important contributions to high-speed flight, with ...

Flugzeugwerke, aircraft factory, Zuffenhausen * Kessler Factory * Koch & Mayer *

AG *

Röchling Group Röchling SE & Co. KG is a plastics engineering company headquartered in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The company has three divisions: Industrial, Automotive and Medical. Currently Röchling employs 11,245 people in 90 locations across ...

Jewish skull collection

The

was an attempt by the Nazis to create an anthropological display to showcase the alleged racial inferiority of the "Jewish race" and to emphasize the status of Jews as

Untermenschen ''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non-Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...

("sub-humans"), in contrast to the Germanic Übermenschen ("super-humans") Aryan race which the Nazis considered to be the "

Herrenvolk The master race (german: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative "Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "''Herrenmenschen''" ("master humans"). Th ...

" (master race). The people who were to serve as best examples of the "Jewish race" were selected from people at the

camp, then brought to Natzweiler-Struthof both to eat well and then to be murdered by gas, and their corpses brought to the Anatomy Institute of at the Reich

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to the ea ...

(

Reichsuniversität Straßburg The Reichsuniversität Straßburg (RUS) was founded 1941 by the National Socialists in Alsace, annexed to Nazi Germany, while the regular University of Strasbourg moved to Clermont-Ferrand in 1940. The purpose was to create a continuity to the G ...

) in the annexed region of Alsace, a project of great scope. Some initial study of the corpses was performed, but the progress of the war stalled completion of the collection. The collection was sanctioned by Reichsführer of the SS

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

, and under the direction of

with Rudolf Brandt and Wolfram Sievers who was responsible for procuring and preparing the corpses as part of his management of the

Ahnenerbe The Ahnenerbe (, ''ancestral heritage'') operated as a think tank in Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945. Heinrich Himmler, the ''Reichsführer-SS'' from 1929 onwards, established it in July 1935 as an SS appendage devoted to the task of promot ...

(the

National Socialist Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

scientific institute that researched the archaeological and cultural history of the hypothesized

Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern I ...

). In a 2013 documentary by Sonia Rolley and others, two historians remark that "Hirt is one of the most absolutely criminal of National Socialist ideology," adds the historian

Yves Ternon Yves Ternon (; born 1932 in Saint-Mandé) is a French physician and medical historian, as well as an author of historical books about the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. He is professor of the history of medicine at University Paris I ...

. "The project itself, continues Professor , is an example of this investment of politics by science, or science by politics that is Nazism." In 1943, the inmates selected at Auschwitz were transported to Natzweiler-Struthof. They spent two weeks eating well in barracks there in Block 13, so they would be good specimens of normal size. The deaths of 86 inmates were, in the words of Hirt, "induced" at a jury rigged gassing facility at Natzweiler-Struthof on several days in August and their corpses, 57 men and 29 women, were sent to Strasbourg for study. Natzweiler-Struthof was considered the better place for gassing the selected victims (better than at Auschwitz), as they would die one by one, with no damage to the corpses, and Natzweiler-Struthof was at Hirt's disposal.

, acting commandant of Natzweiler-Struthof (who was a Lagerführer at Auschwitz and the last commandant of

Bergen Belsen Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentr ...

) personally carried out the gassing of 80 of the 86 victims at Natzweiler-Struthof. BU 003749

The next part of the process for this "collection" was to bring the corpses to the Reichs University, where Hirt's plan was to make anatomical casts of the bodies. Photos of the corpses as found by the Allies who saw them in the Reichs University make the totality of the strange project quite real. The next step after making the casts was to have been reducing them to skeletons. Neither of those steps, making the casts nor reducing the corpses to skeletons, was carried out. In 1944, with the approach of the Allies, there was concern over the possibility that the corpses could be discovered. In September 1944, Sievers telegrammed Brandt: "The collection can be defleshed and rendered unrecognizable. This, however, would mean that the whole work had been done for nothing – at least in part – and that this singular collection would be lost to science, since it would be impossible to make plaster casts afterwards." And so it was left, as the camp was evacuated in September 1944, and the human remains were left at a room in the Reichs University of Strasbourg. Two anthropologists, who were both members of the SS,

Hans Fleischhacker Hans Fleischhacker (10 March 1912 – 30 January 1992) was a German anthropologist with the Ahnenerbe and a commander in the SS of Nazi Germany. He worked with Bruno Beger on some projects, making measurements of Jewish people. He was with Bege ...

and

Bruno Beger Bruno Beger (27 April 1911 – 12 October 2009) was a German racial anthropologist, ethnologist, and explorer who worked for the ''Ahnenerbe''. In that role he participated in Ernst Schäfer's 1938–39 journey to Tibet, helped the Race and Sett ...

, along with Wolf-Dietrich Wolff, were accused of making selections at Auschwitz of Jewish prisoners for Hirt's collection of 'racial types', the man who devised the project of the

. Beger was found guilty, although he was credited for pre-trial imprisonment and served no time. Also named as associated with this project are doctor and the anatomist . August Hirt, who conceived the project, was sentenced to death in absentia at the Military War Crimes Trial at Metz on 23 December 1953. It was unknown at the time that Hirt had shot himself in the head on 2 June 1945 while in hiding in the

Black Forest The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is t ...

. For many years only a single victim, Menachem Taffel (prisoner no. 107969), a Polish born Jew who had been living in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, was positively identified through the efforts of

Serge and Beate Klarsfeld Serge Klarsfeld (born 17 September 1935) is a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust in order to establish the record and to enable the prosecution of war criminals. Since the 1960s, he has made notab ...

. In 2003,

Hans-Joachim Lang Hans-Joachim Lang (born 6 August 1951) is a German journalist, historian, and Adjunct Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Ludwig-Uhland Institute for Empirical Cultural Studies University of Tübingen. Dr. Lang researched and authored th ...

, a German professor at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...

succeeded in identifying all the victims, by comparing a list of inmate numbers of the 86 corpses at the Reichs University in Strasbourg, surreptitiously recorded by Hirt's French assistant Henri Henrypierre, with a list of numbers of inmates vaccinated at Auschwitz. The names and biographical information of the victims were published in the book ''Die Namen der Nummern'' (''The Names of the Numbers''). Rachel Gordon and Joachim Zepelin translated the introduction to the book to English, at the web site where the whole book, including the biographies of the 86 people, is posted in German. Lang recounts in detail the story of how he determined the identities of the 86 victims gassed for Hirt's project of the Jewish skull collection. Forty-six of these individuals were originally from

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

, Greece. The 86 were from eight countries in German-occupied Europe: Austria, Netherlands, France, Germany, Greece, Norway, Belgium and Poland. The biographies of all 86 people are described in English on a web site set up by Lang. In 1951, the remains of the 86 victims were reinterred in one location in the Cronenbourg-Strasbourg Jewish Cemetery. On 11 December 2005, memorial stones engraved with the names of the 86 victims were placed at the cemetery. One is at the site of the mass grave, the other along the wall of the cemetery. Another plaque honoring the victims was placed outside the Anatomy Institute at Strasbourg's University Hospital. In 2022, the gas chamber was reopened to the public, but the European Center for Deported Resistance Fighters (CERD), led by Guillaume d'Andlau, indicated that it did not want to: "celebrate the inauguration of this morbid place", having " nothing to do with those intended for mass murder", specifying that "it is a symbolic place for the camp and its activities in connection with the Reichsuniversität Straßburg" which is perceived as a lack of sensitivity towards mourners.

Post-war criminal trials

The first camp commandant, Hans Hüttig, was sentenced to life in prison on 2 July 1954 by a French military court in

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...

. In 1956, he was released from detention after being imprisoned for eleven years. Josef Kramer, the former commandant of the camp during the time of the Jewish skull collection project, was arrested at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 17 April 1945 and tried at

Lüneburg Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also calle ...

in the British-occupied sector for other crimes committed in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. He was sentenced on 16–17 November 1945 and was hanged at on 13 December 1945. The commandant of Natzweiler at the time that four female resistance agents were executed, Fritz Hartjenstein and five others were tried by a British war crimes court at

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...

, from 9 April to 5 May 1946. All of the accused were found guilty; of these, three were sentenced to death and two hanged. Hartjenstein's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on 1 June 1946. However, he was tried a second time by the British for hanging a POW who was a member of the Royal Air Force. Hartjenstein was sentenced to death by firing squad on 5 June 1946. The sentence was not carried out, and he was then extradited to France, where he was tried at Metz for his crimes at Natzweiler and sentenced to death. He died of a heart attack while awaiting execution on 20 October 1954. Those tried at Wuppertal were: #Franz Berg: death sentence (executed by hanging 11 October 1946) #Kurt Geigling: 10 years imprisonment #Josef Muth: 15 years imprisonment #Peter Straub: death sentence (executed by hanging 11 October 1946) #Magnus Wochner: 10 years imprisonment # Fritz Hartjenstein (commandant): death sentence, commuted to life (Wuppertal), death sentence by British (Rastatt), death sentence by French Court (Metz), died before sentence was carried out Magnus Wochner was also implicated in the

Stalag Luft III murders The Stalag Luft III murders were war crimes perpetrated by members of the Gestapo following the " Great Escape" of Allied prisoners of war from the German Air Force prison camp known as Stalag Luft III on March 25, 1944. Of the 76 successful escap ...

and was listed among the accused. Heinrich Ganninger, adjutant and deputy of commander Fritz Hartjenstein, committed suicide in Wuppertal prison in April 1946 before his trial. He was accused of having murdered four British female spies.

was tried separately at

Rastatt Rastatt () is a town with a Baroque core, District of Rastatt, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located in the Upper Rhine Plain on the Murg river, above its junction with the Rhine and has a population of around 50,000 (2011). Rastatt was a ...

in connection with atrocities committed during his tenure as commandant of Natzweiler-Struthof. He was

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

and subsequently shot by a

firing squad Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French ''fusil'', rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are us ...

near

Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the states of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos (river), Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the ...

on 20 March 1947.

Post-war history, museum and monument

Camp de concentration de Natzwiller-Struthof le 14 avril 2013 - 083

During the night of 12–13 May 1976,

neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...

s burned the camp museum, with the loss of important artifacts. Structures were rebuilt, placing the artifacts that survived the fire as they were found originally. The reconstructed camp museum was officially opened on 29 June 1980. The European Centre of Deported Resistance Members, a new structure at the site, opened in November 2005, and at the same time, "the museum was entirely redesigned to focus solely on the history of Natzweiler concentration camp and its subcamps." A dramatic monument (including a bronze figure supine and emaciated) stands in

Pere Lachaise Cemetery Pere may refer to: *Pere, Hungary, a village in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county * Rangimārie Te Turuki Arikirangi Rose Pere (1937–2020), Māori New Zealand educationalist and spiritual leader * Wi Pere (1837–1915), a Māori Member of Parliament ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

Documentary films

A documentary film was shown in 2014 about the 86 people who were murdered in the camp and whose remains were later identified by name, as described above in The Jewish skull collection section. The film "The names of the 86" (french: Le nom des 86) was directed by Emmanuel Heyd and Raphael Toledano (Dora Films). Another documentary was made about the skull project in 2013, titled ''Au nom de la race et de la science, Strasbourg 1941–1944'' (English: ''In the name of Race and Science, Strasbourg 1941–1945''). Its goal was to explain what happened at Reich University of Strasbourg, at Natzweiler-Struthof, in the strange use of science in this Nazi project to eliminate the Jews, but keeping some remains for history and science, the project never fully completed. In the 2019

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

documentary ''The Man Who Saw Too Much''

Alan Yentob Alan Yentob (born 11 March 1947) is a BBC presenter and retired British television executive. He stepped down as Creative Director in December 2015, and was chairman of the board of trustees of the charity Kids Company from 2003 until its colla ...

traces the story of 106-year-old Boris Pahor, believed to be the oldest known survivor of the Nazi concentration camps at the time.

References

External links

Struthof official site''The Names of the Numbers'' – A Project of Hans-Joachim Lang. List of all 86 victims of the Jewish Skeleton Collection (in German – also in English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Dutch, Norwegian and Polish)

Independent researcher Diana Mara Henry's site

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Natzweiler-Struthof Vichy France Alsatian Jews Nazi concentration camps in France