Prisoner-of-war camp
In 1939, the Sandbostel camp, meanwhile taken over by the Nazi trade union Reichsarbeitsdienst, was converted into the Prisoner-of-war camp Stalag X-B and a camp of internment for civilian enemy aliens. Until 1945 about a million inmates passed through the camp. Estimates of the number of deaths vary between 8,000 and around 50,000. A couple of the original camp buildings still exist in the commercial estate "Immenheim". The cemetery in which several thousand prisoners are buried in mass graves is located just outside the town. There is a memorial to them.