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19.01.2022

Subcamp Salzgitter-Gebhardshagen

Former satellite camp Salzgitter-Gebardshagen

We have added another satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp to the list of satellite camps. We have based this on recent research by the Drütte Concentration Camp Memorial and Documentation Centre. This subcamp of Neuengamme concentration camp was located west of the Gebhardshagen district in Salzgitter in the summer of 1944.

For a period of some two months, at least 300 male prisoners were interned here, among them many French and Soviet citizens. One document even mentions as many as 448 prisoners.

The camp was set up for Erzbergbau Salzgitter GmbH, a company belonging to the Hermann Göring Reichswerke, for the purposes of operating the Haverlahwiese ore mine in the Salzgitter Hills. The wooden huts for the prisoners and the guard barracks were located close to the Haverlahwiese II mineshaft. Some of the prisoners were put to work in the Haverlahwiese I mineshaft, where they had to drive the gallery and mine the iron ore. But the bulk of the prisoners were assigned to work details above ground, including building a sewage treatment pond and laying out paths and railway tracks.

The Gebhardshagen camp was dissolved on 30 September 1944. The mining company Erzbergbau Salzgitter GmbH switched to POWs for their workforce; the concentration camp prisoners were handed over to the SS and transported back to the main camp at Neuengamme.

At the historical site there is no evidence to serve as a reminder of the former camp. The satellite camp at Gebhardshagen is to feature in the permanent exhibition at the Drütte Concentration Camp Memorial and Documentation Centre from 2022.

Satellite Camp Gebhardshagen