HISTORY

deteriorated dramatically due to the disruption

in transportation and general chaos in the

shrinking territory of the Nazi Third Reich. There

was essentially a famine in the concentration

camps, which worsened the already dire

situation of the prisoners. The Nazi command,

which wanted to keep the situation in the camps

secret, made no effort to stabilize or improve

the supply of prisoners. The consequences of

the last months are known from film footage

and photographs of malnourished prisoners

or their remains, taken by Allied soldiers and

reporters in the liberated camps.

At the beginning of April 1945, the Flossenbürg

concentration camp and its sub-camps began

to be closed down. The SS took 40,000 people

from the main camp and the branch camps to

cover their tracks. Unfortunately, April 1945

was accompanied by harsh winter weather in

this part of Europe. Just before the end of the

war, therefore, thousands of prisoners died

needlessly in transports, death marches and

executions. In the last weeks of the war, Jewish

and Christian clergymen, and the former head

of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris, also lost their

lives in Flossenbürg.

When members of the 3rd Battalion, 358th

Infantry Regiment, U.S. 90th Infantry Division

arrived at Flossenbürg on April 23, 1945, they

found 1,160 prisoners in this horrible place.

The unit's diary also mentions the seizure of

the Messerschmitt 109 aircraft factory. Of the

approximately 100,000 people imprisoned at

Flossenbürg and its sub-camps, more than

70,000 did not live to see the end of the war.

More than 21,000 prisoners lost their lives at

Flossenbürg itself.

Only fifty-one guards and camp staff were

indicted after the war, fifteen were sentenced

to death and eleven received life imprisonment.

Thirteen of the convicts were executed. In other

cases, shorter sentences were given, but by

1957 all the convicts were released.

In 2007, the first of several sections of

a memorial commemorating the victims of this

terrible period of history was opened on the site

of the former concentration camp.

Sources:

Association des Déporté.e.s et Familles

de Disparus du Camp de Concentration de

Flossenbürg & Kommandos

JewishGen, The Forgotten Camps

KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Photo: JaPo

Photo: US Army Signal Corps

the production process at Flossenbürg and its

subsidiary camps, and work in the quarry was

then minimised. At Flossenbürg, Messerschmitt

produced fuselages and wings for the Bf 109

G and K. Production ran continuously in three

eight-hour shifts. The final assembly of subdeliveries from this concentration camp was

carried out in an assembly plant hidden in the

woods (Waldwerk) in Vilseck, with test flights

and handovers carried out at Amberg-Schafhof

airfield.

In mid-1944 due to the Allied advance, the

SS began to clear the concentration camps

, leading to an increase in mass murders and

huge prisoner transports. At Flossenbürg, the

number of prisoners gradually increased from

3,300 at the end of 1943 to 8,000 a year later.

By the end of the war, nearly 15,000 people were

confined there.

The largest number of prisoners at

Flossenbürg died in the last year of the war,

especially from the winter of 1944 onwards. The

prisoners were crammed into quarantine blocks

of 1,500 people each, and those who were unable

to work for Messerschmitt or other companies

in the subsidiary camps were sent to the dying

blocks.

By the spring of 1945, the supply situation had

Photo: Yad Vashem

Photo: US Army Signal Corps

The fuselages of Bf 109 K-4 aircraft photographed by American soldiers at the

When the first American soldiers arrived in snow-covered Flossenbürg camp on April 23,

Flossenbürg train station in April 1945. In the rear right, part of the village behind

1945, they were greeted by this banner.

which the concentration camp was located can be seen, and the ruins of the castle

that has dominated the local landscape for centuries can be seen on the horizon.

A picture of inmates who were lucky enough to live to see the liberation of Flossenbürg.

September 2023

A photograph taken on May 3, 1945, showing local German civilians exiting the main gate

of Flossenbürg concentration camp with the bodies of deceased inmates for burial.

INFO Eduard

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