Inside of the Third Reich, and the German occupied lands of the Second World War, there
were a huge network of concentration camps established.
Inside of the barbed wire fences, violent SS guards and sadistic members of staff would
make the lives of prisoners a misery.
They were sites of execution and extermination, and prisoners did not know if each day would
be their last.
One of the largest concentration camps established was Sachsenhausen, and inside this camp some
prominent world war 2 prisoners were killed.
Even Joseph Stalin’s son was killed there, but it was a place where there was a huge
amount of death and execution.
Of Sachsenhausen’s 200,000 prisoners, around 100,000 of them were killed by the horrific
conditions, gas chamber and medical experiments.
Prisoners were treated terribly, and were killed in the open.
Join us today as we look at the horrific executions of the prisoners of Sachsenhausen, remember
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Sachsenhausen was established in 1936, and it was found 22 miles north of Berlin.
This meant that it was close to the heart of the Nazi third reich, and to begin with
the camp was used as an SS training centre and as a place to experiment effective execution
methods to be used at other camps.
It was here where within the walls much execution occurred.
Early on, it happened with prisoners being placed in a small room.
Often music would be playing, and then prisoners were told that they were to have their height
and weight measured in a fake medical facility, before they were then shot and executed through
the back of the neck via a pistol shoved through a sliding door behind their neck.
This was considered time consuming, and the SS even trialled execution more prisoners
by forcing them to dig.
Pit and then they were shot in there.
Also they used these mass graves following hangings, but these methods also caused too
much panic within the prisoner population, so the SS had to come up with something more
discreet and quiet.
Because of this, gas chambers arrived at Sachsenhausen, and trials were held in which they tested
the largest amount of inmates driven into the chambers and killed without panic being
created.
Gas Vans were also used, but over time Sachsenhausen saw a huge amount of development and expansion.
There was an infirmary found at the camp, and also a camp prison and other facilities.
Surrounding the camp near to the camp wall and the prisoners camp was the neutral zone.
This was considered a no go area for people, and it had a barbed wire fence which was electricuted,
and signs all around the site warned of immediate execution for anyone who went inside of the
neutral zone.
But there were a number of industries and work which prisoners were forced to work in
at Sachsenhausen.
It was within an industrial area, and the camp contained a number of SS workshops where
prisoners were forced to work incredibly hard.
Those who could not work, were forced to stand to attention for hours on end until the working
day was over, and others were shot for refusing to work.
The slave labour aspect was very tough, and the inmates were used to work towards the
German war industry, as Heinkel the aircraft maker used many prisoners to make bomber aircraft.
One of the strangest industries inside the camp was a large counterfeiting operation
which occurred there.
The Germans forced skilled workers to created forged American and British Bank Notes, which
they hoped would bring the economies of their enemies to their knees.
The Germans introduced thousands of fake bank notes, and in England many of these were never
found.
But things were tough inside of the factories, and what made things worse was the fact the
SS guards kept people in horrendous conditions.
Around 30,000 prisoners at Sachsenhausen died from starvation, exhaustion, disease and pneumonia
because of the terrible living conditions.
They were not given enough food to sustain them properly, and many others succumbed to
medical experiments which occurred.
The SS created a punishment centre there where inmates would be brought in for interrogation
and would be held in solitary confinement.
Things were very tough here as rations were even shorter than inside the main camp.
Punishment was very harsh, and some people would be forced to perform a sachsenhausen
salute.
This was where someone was forced to squat with their arms outstretched in front and
then they had to march around the roll call yard all day for this, and many were forced
to march around 25 miles a day like this.
Many were kept in isolation, and some were held and suspended in their air by their wrists
like the manacles and the strappado during the Medieval period.
Also gruelling exercise was inflicted onto inmates, and a number were forced to run 25
miles a day with heavy back packs, and sometimes they were given drugs such as cocaine to test
their bodies and their military boots which had been made in the factory.
There was also allegations regarding an experimental drug used there called D-IX(9) which was designed
to improve stamina and endurance.
This was in a sense a deadly cocktail of cocaine, amphetamines and other drugs, and they gave
prisoners at Sachsenhausen it to see if it would have any use for the Wehrmacht and the
German military.
But the killing and execution at the camp was daily, and hundreds of prisoners were
being killed each month.
In November 1940, the SS shot 33 polish prisoners by firing squad, and a further 550 people
were killed there.
But in 1941 and in the autumn, around 10,000 soviet POWs were shot dead at the camp through
the neck shooting facility.
These prisoners were excluded from the camps records, and their killings remain an undocumented
part of the camps history.
Further executions occurred, as the first hangings took place in May 1942 using gallows
in the roll call yards which terrified the prisoners each day.
Further resistance fighters and hostages were killed also that month, and Station Z was
also established.
This was a complex which included a gas chamber and four crematoria which would deal with
the killing and clean up operation there.
Also a huge sand pit was nearby which was used as an execution trench.
But many high profile executions took place and Sachsenhausen. 7 British Army commandos
were executed there, and these were shot following Hitler issuing his commando order stating
that all captured members of commando units should be shot without trial.
Further SOE officers and spies were held and executed at Sachsenhausen, and it was where
Joseph Stalin’s son Yakov Dzhugashvili died.
Historians debate whether he was executed, or whether he took his own life walking into
the fence on the neutral zone, electrifying himself to make sure his ordeal was over with.
As the Second World War turned against the Germans, Heinrich Himmler ordered that every
prisoner inside Sachsenhausen should be executed.
Sick inmates were taken to the industrial yard where they were executed, and in the
liberation of other sub camps, large scale killings took place.
Himmler and Hitler did not want anyone who was held there to fall into the hands of the
enemy, and even on the death marches northwest, thousands of prisoners who were physically
exhausted and shattered were shot by the SS after they collapsed.
In total its believed that around 100,000 people were executed and killed within Sachsenhausen
Concentration Camp.
This made it one of the deadliest camps of the Second World War, and it was a place where
high value political prisoners were kept.
It was considered a safe place close to the Nazi heartland for the high ranking prisoners
to be held.
It meant that escape was very tricky for them, but inside the walls a huge number of prisoners
would never make it out alive.
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