Part Five - Other European "Free Men" Chapter 7 - Germany & Austria While every occupied nation in Europe had its patriotic underground movement, backed up and directed by their "Free Governments" in London, there was little organised resistance within Germany itself. However, as Count Klaus von Stauffenberg's attempt at Rastenberg to assassinate Hitler demonstrated, there was a strong anti-Nazi element within Germany and Austria. In addition, the Soviet Union maintained an effective underground intelligence network through devoted German communists. But while these tended to be concentrated in the industrial complex of the Ruhr, they were not particularly Allied enamoured by the death and destruction descending on them from the USAAF by day and the RAF by night. Nevertheless, both SOE and various sections of the SIS maintained a "German Desk" while Washington and Moscow also had their own organisations on active service within Germany and Austria. Such undercover activities had relatively more success in Austria, where hostility against the Anschluss still lingered, particularly in the south-east of that country where there was an active resistance movement by the Slovenian minority. Thus the German prison camps in Austria close to the Yugoslavian and Italian borders were a better springboard to freedom than most others. This was particularly true of the Stalag XVIIIA at Wolfsberg and Stalag XVIIID at Marburg (Maribor) which was even closer to the borders of Yugoslavia and Hungary. The Slovenian town of Semic became the virtual nerve-centre for group escapes through Yugoslavia to liberated Italy (K1). Stalag XVIIIA was more of a transit camp where Allied POW, particularly those from Greece and Crete, had all their details listed and card indexed, before they were drafted out to various "arbeitkommanos" throughout Austria. Many Allied POW who did manage to escape but were re-captured were returned to Wolfsberg for inquisition by the Gestapo before transfer to "punishment" camps (M24). Stalag XVIIID seemed to have more than its share of gifted POW linguists who were vital to effective liaison with the Slovenian underground movement. Marburg also has many work camps under its direct administrative control. It was relatively easy to break away from such smaller camps and, once in Yugoslavia, escapers could be directed to the various British and American missions established there. These in turn would arrange transport to Allied bases in Italy (HH1). Austria
Most AIF POW drew little distinction between Germany and Austria. Certainly those who were prisoners of the Italians, but rounded up from Italian prison camps and shipped out of Italy across the border to Austria as German POW did not. The Anschluss and dismissal of Chancellor Dollfuss "the only leader to have a life-size portrait on a postrage stamp" were a part of past history that had swallowed up Austria as an independent state. The Austrian underground was weak and although some attempts were made to infiltrate from Yugoslasvia, and some POW, who had volunteered for special duties were trained by the SOE in Italy, there never was an effective underground army. What little effort was made by both SOE and OSS was only started after The Italian Army had made its armistice with the Allies, but that only prepared an administrative framework for post-war occupation. ("The SOE 1940 - 45", M.R.D. Foot M35 p207/08). When the POW in Campo 57 - Udine were encircled by German troops after the Italian Armistice was promulgated, two trains took them into further captivity as German POW. One train went through to Stalag VIIA Moosburg, but the other stopped at Stalag XVIIIB at Spittal in Austria still very close to the Italian border. While some ex-Italian AIF POW stayed at Spittal, many more found themselves at Stalag XV111A at Wolfsberg or at Stalag XVIIID at Marburg (Maribor) near the Hungarian and Yugoslav borders. As the possibility of escape favoured those drafted out to the Italian work camps around Vercelli, so did the work camps surrounding Marburg favour those escaping from there. Many of those AIF POW in Yugoslavia escaped from these camps. NX1164 Sapper Walter Henry Chrestense Steilberg B.E.M after many attempts to escape, finally managed to escape from an evacuation march and reached American lines near Weiden on 25.04.45. References: A6 appendix 1: "Prisoners of the Germans and Italians", A.E. Field. The German "Concentration Camps" of Europe When Adolph Hitler's National Socialistic German Workers Party (The NSDAP or NAZI Party) established the Third Reich of Germany, from his power base in Munich his personal bodyguard, the Schutzstaffel (SS), developed a Secret State Police system - the GEheimsSTAats POlizie (GESTAPO). To “concentrate together enemies of the State”, in 1933, the Gestapo set up its first “Concentration Prison” at Dachau, a village near Munich as a prototype for other “Concentration Prison Camps” to house political enemies, trade unionists, gypsies, homosexuals and other "undesirables". Having established the system and procedures, it's first Commandant, Theodore Eiche (later bearing the title of Inspector of Concentration Camps), moved on to head the Waffen SS Toten Kopf (Death’s Head Division) and it’s infamous black uniform. Dachau was the first of the deliberately planned series of "Extermination Camps" for such "undesirables". Its first inmates were nearly all "undesirables" who were German Citizens - Germans who had committed criminal acts under existing law, who belonged to German communistic-orientated trade unions or even of other German political parties. These German citizens were incarcerated at first in individual cells with a bed, cupboard and a chair. Rapidly, as the list of "undesirables" grew, even these items were removed, several prisoners being pushed into the same space. Eventually even the beds were replaced by slats. Finally even these vanished. Soon a single cell was home to 15 prisoners. But before that, some German citizens had served their sentences and returned to their German families. The crematorium at Dachau was never used! Dachau is now a suburb of Munich, but the nucleus of the camp buildings have been retained and is now a National Museum, along with Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck. It was the first Concentration Camp to be built on German soil. When WWII started with the invasion of Poland, Theodor Eiche and his Waffen SS Deathshead’s Division was first across the Polish border. By the time Germany hosted the Olympic Games to a worldwide audience, the infamous complex of "Concentration Camps" of Belsen-Bergen, Buchenwald, Flossenburg, Mauthausen, Ravensbruck (for females) and Theresienstadt (for families) was spreading as a cancer throughout Germany and especially in its re-occupied Sudentenland, part of Czechoslovakia. The system of “Concentration Camps” was in full swing by 1939 when WWII began and proliferated as the Third Reich expanded throughout Europe bringing millions more "undesirables", "guest workers" and POW into the Fatherland. In the spring of 1940, the Gestapo head - Heinrich Himmler - decided to build a new Extermination Camp near a bleak little town called Oswiecim, 30 miles west of Cracow in Poland. This was to become Auschwitz, the largest and most infamous of the "Vernichtungslager" ("Extermination Camps"). As the war developed, Auschwitz grew to seven times its original size, acting among other activities as a tremendous reservoir of slave workers, whose longevity was brutally decided by the amount of work that could be got out of them before they entered the ovens. It was also to become the centre of the Holocaust. It was not only to use the then most modern extermination technology to eliminate German “undesirables”, but the genocide of all Jews in Europe. When in 1987, the then Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, established the Concentration Camps Committee in Canberra to investigate claims from Australian servicemen about the time they spent in German Concentration Camps. They sanctioned ex-gratia grants of $10,000 to 27 Australian POW - 17 from the AIF and 10 airmen. They were allocated as follows (D2): Most were held in Aussenkommandos, ancillary work camps, of the main Camp. Transfer of POW to a "Concentration Camp" was not permitted under the Geneva Conventions. While the First Geneva Convention of 1864 protected the rights of the sick and wounded prisoners of war, it was not until the Hague Conventions of 1899 that the laws and customs controlling the actions of countries in times of war was negotiated which included how prisoners of war were to be “humanely treated”. With slight modifications signed at the Hague Conventions of 1907, this became the “bible” for the treatment of POW in WWI. In 1929 another Convention in Geneva dealing solely with the rights of POW and the obligations of the countries that held such POW was spelled out and agreed to by 47 countries, including Britain, France and Germany. This Convention, which later was extended to cover enemy civilians as well as prisoners of war, was signed by Japan but never ratified. Under the 1929 Geneva Conventions, POW who attempted to escape, if re-captured alive, could only be punished by confinement within a POW camp prison for a maximum period of 30 days, plus a withdrawal of other camp privileges and a reduction in already meagre rations during their time of confinement. POW who earned the status of serial escapers were illegally sent to Gestapo-controlled punishment or concentration camps, both as a punishment for past escapes and to effectively stop them from attempting more. They were thus deprived of any protection which was their right under the Geneva Conventions or to the privileges provided by the International Red Cross which included precious amenities such as regular food parcels. Such illegal transfers of allied POW between different types of prisons outside those subject to International Red Cross supervision were, in effect, war crimes. The broad term "Concentration Camps" actually covered different types of camps. Auschwitz, for example, became an “Extermination Camps” or Colditz which became a “Punishment Camp”. The existence of some of these “Punishment Camps” to which Anzac POW who fell foul of the Gestapo were sent, was denied for many years by the Governments of both Australia and New Zealand. But due to the efforts of many survivors insisting that such camps had existed, the German Government in 1965 agreed to pay one million pounds Sterling to compensate those British POW illegally sent to them. It was not until 1987 that the Australian and New Zealand governments followed suit, not with money provided by Germany, but as ex-gratia payments from their own budgets. The Little Fortress of Terezin The population of most Axis prison camps ebbed and flowed as various prisoners were marched in and others were marched out. Seldom were any reasons given to those forced to march. The Small Fortress Concentration Camp in Terezin near Prague, Czechoslovakia, was no exception. Those allied POW sent there as a punishment for repeated attempts to escape, came in at different times, while others, at different times, were transferred to other camps on no apparent grounds. Those within a prison complex really only got to know those fellow-inmates who shared their particular cells or camp compound and at best, only the names of other individuals who were from the same unit, or who they knew in previous camps. The answer to the question “Did you know So and So when you were in Terezin?" would be most times met with a blank stare and a negative answer! When "The Small Fortress Association" was formed at Littlehampton, West Sussex BN16 1NL England in 1978, its President was L.R.L. House (British Airborne). The two Vice-Presidents were W.J. Sandman (RNZAF) with H.G. Cullen (2/1st Bn AIF) and the Secretary was A.C. McClelland (also of the 2/1st Bn AIF). Their first task was to start making contacts with former inmates of the Small Fortress and to compile a Nominal Roll of the 90 or so British POW, who were among the large group of nearly 500 inmates to be "marched out" of that camp in the first week of April 1945, when the Third Reich was on its knees. Hitherto the whole existence of “The Small Fortress” had been denied by allied military authorities. British claims including those from Terezin were settled in 1965. But when "The Small Fortress Association" submitted similar claims for ANZAC POW who had been immured at Terezin, both the Australian and New Zealand Governments continued to deny that any of their European POW had been sent to any concentration camps, while a concentration camp at Terezin did not even exist as far as both governments were concerned. Alex McClelland, who was earning a living in England designing and building boats, noticed a poster announcing the claim by Britain for indemnity, while on a visit to Nassau and an RAAF Flt Sgt Ray Perry, whose punishment destination for repeated escapes had been an illegal dispatch to Buchenwald, took up the matter on his return to Western Australia in 1965. But their approach to highly placed politicians (or to anybody with influence that would listen) never achieved any concrete result. Meanwhile the splitting of Germany into two parts complicated the problem of who would pay increased indemnity - East or West Germany or both? It wasn’t until Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1987 stated 'that compensation would be paid to Australian ex-servicemen for time held in concentration camps or such institutions" that there was enough political will to "see justice done" for Colonial as well as for Imperial servicemen. The New Zealand Government promptly ensured that their country did the same. By that time, thanks to access to official Czech records held in the Central State Archives in Prague, “The Small Fortress Association” had quadrupled. Its contact list from the 3 Australians and 5 New Zealanders on its books in 1978 grew to 12 Australians and 17 New Zealanders in 1979. For in those Prague archives are 3 volumes of books with evidence about persons imprisoned in the Gestapo prison in Pankrac in Prague for the period from January 4th 1944 to May 5th, 1945. There was never any doubt in the minds of Czechoslovakian authorities of the existence of "The Small Fortress of Terezin" nor of the names of all the allied POW sent there. Buchenwald Concentration Camp Unlike most other “Concentration Camps”, Buchenwald and other “early built” German Concentration Camps such as Dacau and Sachenhausen, were regarded initially by the Gestapo as “Punishment” rather than “Extermination” Camps. Many serving SS men convicted of various crimes, some civil but most military, were handed down various precise terms of imprisonment when convicted and sentenced. Even among the SS themselves, there were strong preferences as to where such sentences were to be served. Among “Punishment Camps”, Dachau in a small village just outside of Munich, was considered the “best” while Buchenwald and Sachenhausen were also considered by them as “benign” camps, if such an adjective can be applied to any German Concentration Camp. Buchenwald held 20,000 emaciated and exhausted near-corpses when liberated by the US 80th Division in April, 1945. Among their number were some 600 SS prisoners. The UK National Archive file WO 208/4296 A9 on Buchenwald list inmates from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark and France but do not specifically mention those British servicemen sent there. These files merely mention that some groups may have been kept apart as potential “exchange hostages”. Among the Germans themselves, Goering, head of the Luftwaffe and Himmler, head of the Gestapo, were frequently at loggerheads about the treatment given to POW Allied airmen. After the mass escape of airmen from Stalag Luft III Sagan, a furious Hitler ordered the execution of all 69 escapers. Goering feared that the British would retaliate against Luftwaffe POW held by them. The final compromise was that 50 would be executed. The list of those chosen is set out in Lt. Col Scotland’s "The London Cage" M24 p121. In most Concentration Camps there was a system of colour coding the inmates attire with sewn patches. This was a system of recognition to assist guards to identify certain groupings. This system of recognition had much of the same identification purposes as the colour patch worn on AIF uniforms. This system while applicable to most inmates did not apply to Allied airmen. In Buchenwald, different coloured triangles with the apex pointing to the ground, with an individual serial number and a black letter indicating nationality, were group identification signals. Colin Burgess in his exemplary book “Destination Buchenwald” D2 p100 lists them: Red without letters = German political prisoners Every inmate was given a Buchenwald serial number. Kevin Light, one of the few last remaining survivors from the group of Anzac airmen sent from Fresnes Prison in Paris to Buchenwald, was surprised to learn that he had “finished’ his sentence there just before liberation. Technically he was a "Free Man". But no matter whether an evader being circulated back to freedom through an escape line in civilian clothes as many of the airmen from Fresnes sent to Buchenwald were, or a serial escaper POW such as Hal Lennard BEM who ended up at Dachau or Walter Steilberg BEM sent to Terezin Fortress, had the slightest doubt that being sent to any Gestapo prison was as a virtual sentence of death. The terminal “sentence” marked on documents of those Allied “terror flieger” arriving from Fresnes on 20.08.1944 was the acronym DIKAL {Darf in kein anderes Lager} - not to be transferred to any other camp. Acknowledgements and Thanks to: Colin Burgess References: K1 "A Hundred Miles as the Crow Flies", Ralph Churches, Adelaide, 1996. ISBN 0646391178 Other references: M13 "Fatal Silence: The Pope, The Resistance and the German Occupation of Rome", Robert Katz, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 2003. ISBN 0297846612 |
