Lichtenburg concentration camp

Lichtenburg concentration camp
Lichtenburg was a Nazi concentration camp, housed in a Renaissance castle in Prettin, near Wittenberg in the Province of Saxony. Along with Sachsenburg, it was among the first to be built by the Nazis, and was operated by the SS from 1933 to 1939. It held as many as 2000 male prisoners from 1933 to 1937 and from 1937 to 1939 held female prisoners. It was closed in May 1939, when the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women was opened, which replaced Lichtenburg as the main camp for female prisoners.
Operation
Details about the operation of Lichtenburg, held by the International Tracing Service, only became available to researchers in late 2006. An account of the way the camp was run may be read in Lina Haag's book A Handful of Dust or How Long the Night. Haag was perhaps the best known survivor of Lichtenburg, having obtained release before it was shut down.
Lichtenburg was among the first concentration camps in Nazi Germany operating from 13 June 1933; it became a kind of model for numerous subsequent establishments. Soon overcrowded, the detention conditions became increasingly aggravated. Most of the inmates were political prisoners, and so-called habitual offenders (Gewohnheitsverbrecher). From 1937 on it became a camp only for women. In 1939 the SS transferred 900 Lichtenburg prisoners to Ravensbrück, which were its first female prisoners.
The castle today houses a regional museum and exhibit about Lichtenburg's use during the Nazi period.
Personnel
Camp commandant
May 1934 – July 1934: SS-Brigadeführer Theodor Eicke
July 1934 – March 1935: SS-Obersturmbannführer Bernhard Schmidt
March 1935 – March 1936: SS-Standartenführer Otto Reich
April 1936 – October 1936: SS-Standartenführer Hermann Baranowski
November 1936 – July 1937: SS-Standartenführer Hans Helwig
July 1937 – December 1937: Commisar Alexander Piorkowski
Protective custody chief
July 1934 – February 1935: Edgar Entsberger
February 1935 – April 1935 Karl Otto Koch
April 1935 – October 1936 Heinrich Remmert
November 1936 – August 1937 Egon Zill
Director of women's camp
December 1937 – May 1939 Günther Tamaschke
Deputy director of camp
December 1937 – August 1938 Alexander Piorkowski
September 1938 – May 1939 Max Koegel
Notable inmates
Olga Benario-Prestes, German-Brasilian resistance fighter
Armin T. Wegner
Walter Czollek
Arthur Dietzsch
Friedrich Ebert junior, Politician, son of Friedrich Ebert
Philipp Fries
Paul Frölich
Ernst Grube
Lina Haag,
Lotti Huber, actress
Erich Knauf
Wolfgang Langhoff, actor
Hans Litten, lawyer
Wilhelm Leuschner, unionist
Hans Lorbeer, author
Karl Mache
Charles Regnier, actor
Ernst Reuter, Social Democrat
Kurt von Ruffin, actor
Gotthard Sachsenberg,
Werner Scholem, Communist politician
Fritz Thurm (1883–1937), Social Democrat
Lisa Ullrich, Communist politician
Ilse Unterdörfer missionary
See also
Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany
References
External links
Lichtenburg page
Visit to the camp by SS officer Theodor Eicke (image)
Further reading
Sarah Helm: Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration camp For Women. 2015 Penguin Random House, pps 4, 17-19, Prisoners sent from Lichtenberg to Ravensbruck 6-21.
Stefan Hördler: Before the Holocaust: Concentration Camp Lichtenburg and the Evolution of the Nazi Camp System. Holocaust and Genocide Studies 25, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 100–126.
Nikolaus Wachsmann: KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. 2015 Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Subcamps of Buchenwald
Buildings and structures in Saxony-Anhalt
Museums in Saxony-Anhalt
World War II museums in Germany