Camp VIII

Wesuwe

The justice administration had Camp VIII Wesuwe built in order to expand the system of Emsland penal camps from seven to fifteen camps and to be able to deploy more prisoners for moorland cultivation.

The camp was planned for 1,000 prisoners and was completed in June 1938. In September 1938, eight barracks were disassembled and rebuilt in the Zweibrücken area (Palatinate), where prisoners had to perform forced labour to expand the fortifications on the ‘Westwall’ (= western bulwark). The Wesuwe camp was rebuilt by May 1939, but was no longer used until the summer.

After the start of the war in September 1939, the Wehrmacht High Command took over the camp as a prisoner-of-war camp and assigned it as a branch camp to the main prisoner-of-war camp VI B Neu Versen. In 1939/40, however, only a few prisoners of war were housed in Wesuwe. It was only after the initial military successes following the invasion of the Soviet Union that the number of prisoners increased significantly. In September 1941, the camp was occupied by 2,100 Soviet prisoners of war.

The hard forced labour in moorland cultivation, agriculture and commercial enterprises, combined with the inadequate living conditions and poor nutrition, led to the death of countless prisoners of war. The camp administration often imposed draconian punishments. Due to the National Socialist racial ideology, the Soviet prisoners of war in particular were treated ruthlessly.

The Wesuwe war cemetery is the final resting place of 98 Soviet soldiers in individual graves and 2,000 to 4,000 mostly unknown Soviet prisoners of war in mass graves.