As the Second World War turned against the Germans, there were orders given to the SS
to evacuate the concentration camps, and with this thousands of prisoners were marched towards
other camps, and many were marched to their deaths.
Some who were evacuated from sites close by the sea were marched into the sea, where SS
executioners shot them with their machine guns.
But there were many more horrific killings that took place as the war came to an end,
and it became a time where there were many war crimes committed.
One incredibly tragic and horrifying mass killing was the Gardelegen massacre, in which
over 1000 forced slave labourers were forced into a barn which was then torched and set
on fire.
In this one horrific act committed by the Germans, 1016 prisoners were burned alive
or were shot trying to escape.
But what is the story of this?
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Some concentration camps at the end of the war became huge as transports of inmates from
other sites were moved there.
Bergen Belsen for example saw much overcrowding and disease and starvation was a big issue,
as more people were sent and the camp completely broke down.
On the 3rd and 4th of April, the Germans were alerted to the fact the American Army had
crossed the Rhine and they were pushing into Germany, and the SS camp guards at Mittelbau
Dora ordered the mass evacuation of prisoners from the main camps and the sub camps.
Himmler gave specific orders for no prisoners to fall into enemy hands, and with this executions
were ordered.
At Mittelbau Dora, it’s estimated that at least 1 third of the 60,000 inmates died there
during the war, and the Americans would around a week later liberate the prisoners who were
left there.
The prisoners who were evacuated were to be moved either by train or on death marches
by foot to sites further north nearby such as Bergen-Belsen, Neuengamme and Sachsenhausen.
The evacuation order was put in place, and 4,000 prisoners from Mittelbau Dora and the
sub camps were moved.
They arrived in the area of Gardelegend, and they were forced to get off the freight cars
they had been carried for, as the allies had damaged the rail lines to carry them further.
Because of this the prisoners would have to finish the rest of the journey off on foot.
This caused the SS a big problem though, the prisoners heavily outnumbered the guards and
officials who were there to keep order and control, and there was a fear that the prisoners
could overpower them and also escape.
Because of this the SS recruited many people from Gardelegen to help keep guard and to
maintain order, and they recruited members of the German home guard, the Hitler Youth,
auxiliary forces and others who were loyal still lo Hitler.
As the Americans were approaching, there was a greater need for the SS to move the inmates
quickly, and on April 13th around 1000 prisoners who were weak and suffering were taken from
Gardelegen to a huge barn which was found on an estate nearby.
They were then driven into the barn building at gunpoint, and many of these people were
sick and ill suffering from the effects of their imprisonment.
The guards forced these people into the barn and there was not enough space for people
inside there and it was very tight.
The guards knew what they were about to do, and they then barricaded the doors to prevent
any escape and poured gasoline onto the straw and then torched it, engulfing the barn in
flames.
The heat and flames got more intense, and the prisoners began to panic and they tried
to escape but they couldn’t because of the barricaded doors.
Some tried to dig their way out under the barn’s walls, and these were then shot dead.
The following day, the SS then went back to the barn to see what they could do in terms
of disposing of the bodies and hiding the terrible war crime.
They planned to burn the rest of there remains and also the barn and kill anyone who survived,
however the Allied advance and specifically the advance of the 102nd Infantry Division
stopped the SS hiding all of the bodies and the evidence.
On the 14th April 1945, the 102nd came across Gardelegen, and they encountered very little
resistance from the Germans.
On the next day they came across the barn and it was still smouldering.
They also came across the trenches where the SS had dumped the burned remains of many of
the people inside the barn, but also they found the charred remains of people who were
not buried.
It was quite clear that a horrific Nazi crime had taken place, and the press then reported
what the Americans said,.
It spurred many on to fight until the end, and to try and punish those who were the perpetrators.
One said, ‘I never was so sure before of exactly what I was fighting for.
Before this you would have said those stories were propaganda, but now you know they weren’t.
There are the bodies and all those guys are dead.’
It was a truly horrifying sight, and 11 prisoners who survived the burning of the barn were
found alive by the Americans, and they were interviewed also as to what happened.
There were also 20 men found who allegedly had taken part in the massacre, and these
were then rounded up and were shot and executed by the Americans.
But then a week after the massacre was discovered, the American commander in charge ordered 300
men from the town to give the prisoners a proper and decent burial.
The German civilians were forced to exhume almost 600 bodies from the trenches, and they
recovered 430 bodies from the barn.
Each of these were then placed in an individually dug grave, and a ceremony then took place
on the 25th April.
The townspeople were then entrusted with the job to forever look after the graves of the
1016 victims.
Colonel George Lynch spoke to the German civilians and he said, ‘The German people have been
told that stories of German atrocities were Allied propaganda.
Here, you can see for yourself.
Some will say that the Nazis were responsible for this crime.
Others will point to the Gestapo.
The responsibility rests with neither — it is the responsibility of the German people....Your
so-called Master Race has demonstrated that it is master only of crime, cruelty and sadism.
You have lost the respect of the civilized world.’
There were investigations that occurred after the war to bring those who were the perpetrators
of the massacre to justice.
As mentioned many local men who took part were shot dead shortly after in reprisal,
but there was one man who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime, SS Untersturmfuhrer
Erhard Braun, who served three years in prison before he died from leukaemia.
Today the site is a national memorial, and a sign reads, ‘Here lie 1016 allied prisoners
of war who were murdered by their captors.
They were buried by citizens of Gardelegen, who are charged with responsibility that graves
are for- ever kept as green as the memory of these unfortunates will be kept in the
hearts of freedom-loving men everywhere.
Established under supervision of 102d Infantry Division, United States Army.
Vandalism will be punished by maximum penalties under laws of military government.
A sign on the wall of the barn which survives states, ‘You stand in front of the ruins
of a barn, where one of the most cruel crimes of fascism was taking place.
In the night of their liberation, a few hours before Allied forces approach, 1016 international
fighters of resistance against fascism were brutally and inhumanely burned alive.
Whenever you feel apathy or weakness in fighting against fascism and imperialistic threat of
war, get new power from our unforgettable dead.’
The Gardelegen Massacre was a horrific war crime which was disgraceful, and in the final
months of the war the SS would slaughter over 1000 people on this site.
It was just one of many different war crimes which were carried out in the dying days of
the conflict, and as the allies advanced further towards the heart of Nazi Germany.
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