- Arbeitsdorf
Arbeitsdorf was a
concentration camp established by theNazis in 1942.History and the purpose of the camp
In 1936, a German car engineer by the name of
Ferdinand Porsche designed aprototype of a car that would be affordable enough for all Germans to buy. He then showed his idea to the thendictator of Germany,Adolf Hitler . Hitler liked his idea and ordered the manufacture of the car which was known as the KDF-Wagen or later known as theVolkswagen vehicle.With Hitler's approval, Porsche and his business partner
Albert Speer set up a factory inFallersleben , a town 30 miles northeast of the city ofBraunschweig , and because of the war, all production from this camp was to be used for military purposes only. In 1942, Porsche and Speer started a project to see how they could use concentration camp inmates for cheaper, and large-scale production of their cars, in order to benefit their industry.So on April 8, 1942, a new concentration camp, Arbeitsdorf, was opened with 800 inmates from the
Neuengamme concentration camp. The camp commands of Neuengamme and Arbeitsdorf were united in the person of Martin Weiss, the camp commander of Neuengamme at this time. On April 26, 1942 inmates form theSachsenhausen concentration camp and on June 23 inmates from Buchenwald arrived. Mid-July 1942 camp commander becameWilhelm Schitli , former Schutzhaft-camp commander in Neuengamme. [http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de Website of the camp memorial Neuengamme] de icon]Closing and the death toll of the camp
On October 11, 1942, six months after the camp was first established, production of the vehicles was stopped and the camp was closed. A minimum of 6 prisoners perished at Arbeitsdorf. These six deaths are officially listed as suicide, heart attack or accident.
Memorial
The museum Stadtschloss Wolfsburg has a documentation about the Nazi victims with a own exhibition of the slave workers at the Volkswagen factory (Stadtmuseum Schloss Wolfsburg, Schlossstraße 8, 38448 Wolfsburg).
Notes
ee also
*
List of Nazi-German concentration camps
*List of subcamps of Neuengamme
*The Holocaust External links
* [http://www.ushmm.org/ US Holocaust Memorial Museum Website]
* [http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de Website of the camp memorial Neuengamme] de icon
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