Camp II

Aschendorfermoor

The Camp II Aschendorfermoor was completed in April 1935 as a prison camp for 1,000 prisoners. It was guarded by an SA unit in the service of the judiciary, which was later complemented by judicial officers.

From April 1937, the camp was expanded so that now 1,500 prisoners could be accommodated. The prisoners had to create an ‘amusement park’ for the guards, the remnants of which have been preserved.

Up until the beginning of the war, the prisoners were people who had been persecuted by the Nazi regime on political, racial, social or religious grounds. In addition, there was a much larger group of prisoners who had been convicted of criminal offences. From July 1937 to May 1940, the central administration concentrated political prisoners from all the camps in the Emsland in Aschendorfermoor. This affected around 2,200 prisoners over the entire period. Afterwards, almost half of the prisoners were former soldiers sentenced by Wehrmacht courts.

Depending on the time of year, the prisoners had to perform 8 to 12 hours of forced labour in the moor every day (drainage, road and path construction, peat extraction). Following the start of the war in 1939, the prisoners were increasingly deployed in essential war industries and in agriculture. The rations were poor and inadequate in relation to the hard labour. In addition to this general ordeal, the prisoners were subjected to a great variety of physical and psychological abuse by the guards. The civil register records 237 deaths, but it is likely that the actual number is higher. The dead were buried in the Börgermoor camp cemetery, which is now the Esterwegen burial ground.

Early in April 1945, around 2,500 to 3,000 prisoners were transferred from the prison camps in the Emsland to Aschendorfermoor to be transported elsewhere. Shortly afterwards, a Captain in paratrooper uniform turned up with a few scattered soldiers, took command and ordered the mass murder of the prisoners. Upon his arrest in Aurich, the captain identified himself as 21-year-old Private Willi Herold. He was sentenced to death by a British court in August 1946 and executed in Wolfenbüttel on the 14th of November.

In 1946, the 172 victims of the massacre were exhumed and buried nearby in a newly established graveyard.