(Photograph taken from here here with creative commons license)
Writing a historical novel based on one’s own family history sometimes makes researching an already dark era even more difficult, because there is a personal component involved. One of the occasions I noticed this was during researching the Buchenwald special camp. I was still a child when my great-aunt mentioned that her husband had been interned there after the war, and the “after the war” confused me because I didn’t know that the history of some camps extended into the post-war period. As a young adult, I found no information about this in Buchenwald – the permanent exhibition on the special camp only opened in 1997. During the GDR era, this dark period of continued use of the camp was completely hushed up.
When I later talked a little more about the topic with my great-aunt, I was surprised how important it was for her to explain to me that her husband had not been involved with the Nazis at all – he had not been a party member or a supporter of the regime, but humanities scholar who had lived for his studies and “couldn’t hurt a fly.” Which, from everything else I heard, was true; I just couldn’t understand why this clarification was so important to my great-aunt, because I hadn’t made or expressed any assumptions along those lines anyway. I only understood this when I took a closer look at the history of the special camps and how the issue was dealt with during the GDR era. The internments were carried out under the pretext of punishing Nazi criminals, and those who survived their internment and remained in the GDR continued to be stigmatized.
The so-called special camp No. 2 was used by the Soviet occupying forces from the summer of 1945. There were nine other special camps:
- Special camp No. 1 in Mühlberg, used from September 1945 – September 1948
- Special camp No. 3 in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, used from May 1945 – October 1946
- Special camp No. 4 in Bautzen, used from May 1945 – 1956 (website only in German)
- Special camp No. 5 in Ketschendorf, used from April 1945 – February 1947 (website only in German)
- Special camp No. 6 in Jamlitz (former concentration camp), used from September 1945 – April 1947 (website only in German)
- Special camp No. 7 in Sachsenhausen (former concentration camp), used from August 1945 – 1950
- Special camp No. 8 in Torgau, used from September 1945 – October 1948 (website only in German)
- Special Camp No. 9 in Fünfeichen, used from June 1945 – January 1949 (website only in German)
- Special camp No. 10 in Torgau, used from September 1945 – October 1948 (website only in German)
When these camps were closed, those internees who were not deported to forced labor or taken to prison were taken to Buchenwald .
The NKVD, the Russian secret police, has arrested a lot of people since last year. Often exactly as you described. Someone is picked up for short questioning and then the relatives don’t hear anything anymore. (…) Those arrested simply disappear.
All quotes are taken from „Life’s Labyrinthine Course„.
If you read who was among the internees and how they were treated, it quickly becomes clear that the punishment of Nazi criminals was mostly a pretext and that it was in fact all about getting undesirable people out of the way – a procedure that was only too familiar from Nazi times and had already become a tradition in the Stalinist Soviet Union.
This is particularly obvious with regard to internees who had already been imprisoned in concentration camps under the Nazis: Joachim Ernst von Anhalt, interned in the Dachau concentration camp by the Nazis, and as of 1945 interned in Buchenwald, where he died. Max Emendörfer (website only in German), member of the KPD, in prison and in several camps under the Nazis, active in the National Committee for a Free Germany; interned in the Sachsenhausen special camp and in Soviet camps as of 1945. The SPD politician Karl Heinrich (website only in German), who spent a large part of the Nazi dictatorship in prisons and camps, was taken to the Höhenschönhausen special camp in 1945 and died there. Georg Krausz (website only in German), KPD politician and resistance fighter, who had suffered in Buchenwald as an internee under the Nazis, was then, after an odyssey through various Soviet special camps, taken back to Buchenwald as an internee under the Soviet occupying forces. These are just some examples.
The number of nobles and large landowners is also striking – the nobility certainly made its dark contribution to the success of National Socialism, but there were also numerous internees among them who were not to be blamed in this regard, but who fell under the enemy image of the so-called „junkers“ who, for example, were depicted on a poster for land reform as weeds that needed to be exterminated. There were young people (including twelve-year-olds) among the internees, the best known being Erika Riemann, who was arrested at the age of 14 and interned for nine years because she had painted a bow on a picture of Stalin with lipstick. Students who questioned the new system were also among the internees. Others ended up in the camps because of denunciations.
Relatives were not informed. I read some contemporary witness reports that mentioned arrests in villages where word got out at least unofficially that the person had been arrested. Otherwise there was uncertainty. Camp detention was often preceded by a period in various prisons in which those arrested were subjected to constant interrogation – preferably at night – which was routinely accompanied by torture. This part of the research was particularly stressful. Many report that the interrogations were conducted in Russian and that they did not even understand what was being asked of them. Others were repeatedly pressured into admitting to things they did not commit, and in one case evidence to the contrary was ignored. The NKVD’s torture methods were horribly varied.
Because when they were once more done with me, I was lying in a pool of my own blood again and being shot immediately no longer seemed like a bad alternative. Because I had hardly slept for weeks, as they liked to do their interrogations at night and during the day you weren’t even allowed to sit on the cots, let alone lie down. Because one of the others had died just the day before, had died of his injuries right there in the cell and we could all see what they were still capable of. Because they told me they would arrest you, and every night we heard the cries for help from the women they abused.. (…) That was in the damn basements during the first few weeks. Those hideous cellar holes. The light was on all the time, day and night. Every night cries of pain and help echoed through the building.
The people ending up in the special camps were those who couldn’t be found guilty of anything specific. When there was actual or assumed evidence of wrongdoing people were brought before tribunals and sentenced to harsh punishments, which often included forced labor in Russian camps such as the infamous Vorkuta. The internees in the special camps were there without judgment and without knowing when they would be released again.
Things are bad in the camps. They are completely isolated, no newspapers, no outside contact. There is no work, they just sit there and wait, not knowing how long they’ll have to stay there and how their families are doing. Apparently they’re dying in droves from malnutrition and the hygienic conditions must be catastrophic. Epidemics and diseases also kill many people. The dead are thrown into mass graves and their relatives are never notified.
To this day, there are many people who do not know whether their relatives were among the well over 40,000 people who died in the special camps, whether they were deported to Russia or died in some other way. What all camps have in common is that the dead ended up in anonymous mass graves. The camp memorials now have so-called books of the dead, which can also be viewed online, such as the book of the dead from the Buchenwald special camp here. In the camps themselves there are now memorial plaques or columns that commemorate the dead. Buchenwald’s website reports how burial sites and names were rescued from oblivion, even though both the Soviet occupation authorities and the GDR authorities wanted to cover them with a fog of obscurity. From a video of an interview with a contemporary witness, I learned that the internees who buried the deceased were later deported to Russian gulags so that they could not share their knowledge. The information on Buchenwald’s site also mentions this.
From the beginning, no one knew how long they’d be stuck there or whether they would ever get out again. That was also part of this cruel uncertainty. There was no date to hope for. When people were taken away, one didn’t know whether they were now free or being deported to Russia. There was so little information and so much time to brood. There was only work for a few, and most opportunities for entertainment were forbidden. One just vegetated. For months, with no prospect of anything changing.
In addition to the uncertainty of how long one would be interned, what would follow and how the relatives would fare, the complete isolation and lack of things to do must have seemed like another psychological torture. There were only few work opportunities; most people could do nothing but wait and ponder. Contemporary witness reports show that the internees became quite creative; they drew on existing knowledge, recited poems, told each other the contents of books, and passed on what they had learned. Even plays or scenes were performed. From 1948 onwards, a few newspapers were permitted for the first time.
Then that first winter … ‘46/47. Rations were reduced. The temperatures in the barracks were below zero, there were no blankets or anything like that, one lay directly on these wooden planks. People died in droves and the bodies were piled up outside until they were transported away. With the icy winter, we were of course all worried about our family members.
Another characteristic common to all camps are the appalling hygienic conditions (washing was sometimes only possible/permitted every 10 days) and the hunger, which was also used psychologically (the rations were halved at Christmas of all days). The internees had to somehow procure their own clothing and slept on wooden planks in unheated barracks.
While, as mentioned, the camps were hushed up in the Soviet occupation zone / GDR, reports about them in the western occupation zones were seen as an effective tool in the developing cold war. When the first people released from the camps went to the West in 1948, they told their story and the newspapers reported on it.
“Thomas Mann is coming to Weimar to receive the Goethe Prize. I have an assignment to write an article about it. It’s a pity that Dad isn’t there to witness it.”
“He’s going there for a celebration, more or less directly in front of Buchenwald? And you’re going to go and join in?”
“It’s Goethe Year and Weimar is a Goethe city after all. Thomas Mann also receives the Goethe Prize in Frankfurt, so it would be quite rude to refuse the one from Weimar.”
“Rude? It would be a sign! People in the West know about the camps and the conditions there!”
“He will have thought it through carefully. Maybe he’ll say something about it.”
“Which you of course wouldn’t be allowed to mention in your article about the beautiful celebration. He won’t say anything anyway. He’ll bask in adulation and everyone will act as if Buchenwald doesn’t exist. Including you.”
I saw a video of the famous German author Thomas Mann’s visit to Weimar in 1949. Everything was very friendly, visits to cultural sites, smiling people, all nice pretense. A few kilometers away lay Buchenwald – hushed up during the pretty celebration. Before his visit, Thomas Mann had been asked by many people, including former internees, to comment on Buchenwald and to insist on a viewing. The powerful, urgent appeals had no effect on him. The writer, who was never at the forefront when it came to taking a stand (which his two eldest children, Erika and Klaus, particularly resented during the Nazi era), kept an elegant distance and played along with the game of appearances in Weimar. He consoled himself with the fact that things in Buchenwald weren’t as bad as they used to be. At least he later writes a discreet letter to GDR head Walter Ulbricht.
Despite Thomas Mann’s lofty silence, there were enough others who did not remain silent and gradually the GDR could no longer withstand the pressure. At the beginning of 1950, the closure of the remaining camps was finally announced. It was also reported in GDR newspapers, phrased as generous forgiveness for those who had stood in the way of “democratic construction” and now had to prove themselves . The articles emphasized how humane things were in the camps.
Upon leaving we were told that we still had to prove ourselves in order to atone for our guilt – whatever that was. We’re supposed to help build socialism. (…) Of course it’s absolutely forbidden to talk about the camp. Anyone who doesn’t contribute in a sufficiently socialist way, talks about the camp or otherwise attracts unpleasant attention will be locked up again straight away, they made that clear.
The video that can be found on the Buchenwald Memorial’s website about the closure of the camp shows original newsreel footage from that time and right at the beginning you can hear the cynical sentence: „The released people will have to show whether they know how to appreciate this sign of trust.“
I read several eyewitness reports in which people who remained in the GDR after their release (or return from Vorkuta or the prisons) were subjected to mistrust and disadvantages and were viewed as Nazi criminals simply because of their internment. In my book, too, an intelligent journalist who had always been able to look beyond the ideology during the Nazi era, praises the GDR and its treatment of people who were inconvenient to them:
“Do your share and you’ll see that you’re just as welcome in the GDR as anyone else. Nobody is excluded.”
“Not even those who died in the camps? Or those who did not survive the NKVD torture?”
Dorchen stopped. “The torture is a rumor.”
“No. Reality. How does that fit with your idealistic description of the GDR?”
“That has nothing to do with the GDR! That was the Russian secret police. And it was a different time, right after the war. It was about convicting and punishing Nazis. Now it’s about building a better society.”
After forty years of silence enforced from above, there are now numerous websites and books reporting on the camps, but most of it is in German.
Some information in English can be found in the links mentioned above as well as here:
- Information about John Noble, an American who suffered ten years in Soviet camps
- Book website
- Deutsche Welle article
Heike Wolf - Historische Romane 