Throughout the Second World War, there were a number of concentration camps which were
infamous in their running.
Many hundreds of thousands of people made their way through the barbed wire fences of
camps such as Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz and Ravensbruck, and many would never make it
out.
The SS Guards used terror to inspire fear in the prisoner population, and executions
were carried out on a daily basis inside of the roll call yards in front of hundreds of
people.
After the war, some of the most evil guards were brought to trial and were sentenced to
death for their evil actions, but the true nature of many of the camps, and the real
daily horrors are still being uncovered today.
One camp which was found east of the city of Danzig was Stutthof Concentration Camp,
and after the war a number of the guards who worked there including a number of women were
executed for their actions at Stutthof.
They were brought to the centre of Gdansk, and a huge set of gallows took their lives
in front of a huge crowd.
But in the final days of Stutthof Concentration Camp, there were a huge number of executions
as the camp was evacuated.
But what is the story of this?
Join us today as we look at the horrific executions of the Stutthof Death March, and remember
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Stutthof Concentration Camp was established to work alongside the ethnic cleansing projects
and the mass killings of the members of the polish elite.
People had been arrested in the area around the camp for months even before the camp was
opened, and when Stutthof was created it was to be a civilian internment camp, but it went
under a huge expansion.
It was used in November 1941 for labour education like other sites such as Dachau, but then
in January 1942 it became a fully functioning concentration camp.
The original camp had 8 barracks and rooms for SS guards, and then it crew heavily and
was surrounded by an electrified barbed wire fence.
A crematoria and gas chamber were later added in 1943, and mass executions took place.
The staff was made up of Ss guards and also later Ukranian auxiliaries who were brought
in.
There were also a number of female guards who supervised female prisoners, and they
were known for horrific sadism and brutality.
Some female guards included Elisabeck Becker, Gerda Steinhoff and Jenny Wanda Bakmann who
became infamous for their crimes and evil murderous antics.
There were thousands of people who came to Stutthof, and its believed that there were
110,000 inmates who passed through the barbed wire fences, but around 65,000 were killed.
The conditions there were very tough, and thousands of prisoners died from disease and
also starvation.
There were deadly typhus epidemics that hit the camp in Winter 1942 and also in 1944,
and the SS would send those who were ill or too weak to work to their deaths inside of
the gas chamber there.
Mass executions were carried out at Stutthof, as dozens were shot dead at Stutthof, and
in 1944 gassing with Zyklon B began.
4000 prisoners died inside the small Stutthof gas chamber, and also many others were given
lethal injections of phenol.
However the mud at the camp was also so thick, that some unfortunate inmates were drowned
in the mud, and some were beaten and clubbed to death by the guards.
The inmates were forced to conduct back breaking work, and many inmates worked in local brickyards
and in other enterprises, or the armaments factory within Stutthof itself.
However as the Second World War turned against the Germans, there were calls from the SS
and Hitler to not allow a single prisoner to fall into the hands of the enemy.
Himmler would issue orders to his SS to liquidate the prisoner population to make sure the true
crimes and evils of the camps would not get out.
He would also order thousands of prisoners to be moved away from the frontlines as the
Red Army approached from the East, and the Allies approached from the West.
Many camps closer to the German heartland such as Bergen-Belsen became incredibly overcrowded
because of this, and many more would succumb to the conditions of disease and starvation
there.
But in January 1945, the Soviet Red Army was approaching the Stutthof Concentration Camp,
and they were around 50 kilometres away.
The evacuation order came on the 25th January 1945 and immediately the camp was evacuated.
To begin with there were nearly 50,000 prisoners and the majority of them were Jewish inside
of Stutthof and its sub camps.
At morning roll call at 4 o’clock, around 37,000 inmates were marched out of the main
camp.
They were given hardly any food and water and they were also expected to walk for hours
on end without any break, and if prisoners could not keep up, German guards would take
them to the side of the road, and literally just shoot them dead and leave them.
The 37,000 inmates marched to the west of Gdansk, and the conditions of the death march
were brutal, as the winter was incredibly cold and many inmates died from sheer exhaustion.
Around 20,000 people died during these death marches.
Many of the prisoners were marched in the direction of Lauenburg in eastern Germany,
but they were cut off by advancing Soviet forces, and because of this the Germans forced
the surviving prisoners back to Stutthof, showing it was a pointless exercise.
Around 5,000 prisoners from Stutthof’s sub camps were taken on a death march towards
the Baltic Coast.
This march had no end destination, but SS guards once they got to the sea would force
the prisoners to walk into the water, and then machine guns would cut them down and
kill them, and the sea would turn red.
In late April 1945, the remaining prisoners were taken from Stutthof and were yet again
sent towards the Baltic Coast.
Hundreds when they got there had to repeat the same brutal execution, as they were marched
into the sea and shot dead.
Some were luckier, as they were sent by small boat to Germany and they managed to live,
but others ended up at Neuengamme Concentration Camp, or other sites along the Baltic coast.
Some of the vessels containing prisoners were not given authority by the Nazi coast guards
to land at towns such as Lubeck, and because of this the SS guards threw the bodies of
the prisoners and those who were alive into the freezing cold sea, where many were drowned
or suffered hypothermia.
Further bloodshed would occur in the evacuations.
On the 5th May 1945, a barge filled with starving and dying prisoners from Stutthof was towed
into a Danish harbour. 19 on board died, but 351 were saved.
But as mentioned it’s believed that over 25,000 inmates of Stutthof were killed in
the evacuations and the death march.
When the Red Army liberated Stutthof, they managed to rescue around 140 inmates who had
managed to hide and who had managed to escape the death marches.
However after the war, the Stutthof Trials took place, and a number of former guards
and members of staff were tried for their crimes.
Many were linked to the death marches and the evacuation of the site, and as mentioned
a number of SS overseers and guards were taken to a huge hill in Gdansk and in front of a
20,000 strong crowd, were executed on the huge gallows.
Stutthof Concentration Camp was a site where 65,000 people were killed within it’s electrified
fences.
Many lost their lives inside of the gas chambers, but also on the evil death marches as they
were sent away from the grasps of liberating forces.
Daily life inside of Stutthof was brutal and barbaric, and the inmates were suffering each
hour of the day.
Death marches took place at most other Nazi SS camps, and with this hundreds of thousands
of prisoners were subjected to being forced to walk for hundreds of miles, with SS guards
practically holding a gun to their heads.
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