Kemna concentration camp

Kemna concentration camp is located in the Barmen quarter of Wuppertal on 8,700 m² (2.1 acres) at Beyenburger Straße 146.[16] The camp was sometimes referred to as "Konzentrationslager Wuppertal-Barmen", the name printed as the return address on postcards sent by prisoners, but is primarily known as "KZ Kemna", KZ being the German abbreviation for "concentration camp".[17]

The main building was a four-story former factory at number 146.[note 2] Also on the grounds were a house at number 142, a boiler unit and some smaller buildings. A 3 m (9.8 ft) chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire surrounded the property, replacing a barbed wire barrier that was originally erected.[16] On the ground floor of the main building were the kitchen, laundry room and a registration room where all new prisoners were recorded. Above that, on the second floor, were the quarters for the commandant and room three, which initially provided quarters for the guard staff and, during that time, was where most of the torture took place. The third floor was divided into two rooms where the prisoners were housed, rooms four and five. All the windows in these rooms were painted black, both inside and out, preventing prisoners from looking out and passersby from looking in, and causing the rooms to be dark, even during the day.[16] Nonetheless, these rooms were considered the best; they were outfitted with beds, tables and benches in the summer of 1933, and were not as close to the torture area.[18] The attic floor contained a clothing storeroom, an orderly room and prisoner quarters for Nazis placed in "protective custody".[16] Special cells for harsh punishment were the freight elevator and cubicles under the stairs, where prisoners were forced to crouch for hours.[8][19]

Rooms one and two, also prisoner housing, were in two one-story buildings closer to the river[19] and where until October 1933, the prisoners had no beds and slept directly on the ground, with just a bit of straw underneath them. Room one led to the "bunker", a concrete former coke storage room adjacent to the boiler unit, and the infirmary. The heating equipment was non-functional; a battlefield forge stood in the unit.[19] The bunker was 16 m² (170 sq ft), with one small opening and an iron door leading to room one. New prisoners lived there for days, even weeks. As many as 50 men at a time were forced to live there in stifling air and heat; one witness said, "The exhaled breath of those locked up was so great that water condensed and ran under the door, as if poured from a bucket."[20]

Room two led to the toilets and contained a small room where food was served and a 17-man crew peeled potatoes for the kitchen.[19] In late September 1933, in preparation for a large transport of 200 men, the guards' quarters and the infirmary were moved into the house, which had previously been empty. Afterward, the former infirmary became the main torture room and a new infirmary was set up in a walled-off section of room two.[19] Of the prisoner housing, room one was considered the worst because there was an increased likelihood of attracting the attention of a passing SA man, an occurrence that could lead to immediate abuse. Most feared by the prisoners, however, were the torture rooms; the bunker, the freight elevator and the cubicles, where inmates were denied even the normal camp standards of meals, washing, toilets and the infirmary.[18]

In addition to these, a wing was added to the main building with the prisoners forced to provide the labor. The new wing had guards' quarters, plus individual cells and a sound-insulated interrogation room. The SA began using the new wing in December 1933 just before the camp was closed.[19]

The total number of prisoners is estimated to have been between 2,500 and 5,000.[12][21] The number is difficult to ascertain because camp records were destroyed and there is little other information from which a precise number can be deduced. Of the total number of prisoners, 646 people have been identified by name.[21]

Those imprisoned were primarily those swept up in mass arrests of political opponents from the Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) and the Social Democrats (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD) from the Bergisches Land, also certain unaligned Christians, and unionists. Jews who were there were imprisoned for their political views, not because they were Jews,[5] although the SA's anti-semitism resulted in worse treatment if one even appeared to be Jewish.[22] There were also transports and others arrested individually from the area, including nearby cities such as Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Krefeld and Essen. While the guards in other concentration camps were from various parts of Germany, prisoners and guards at Kemna were all from the same area and often knew each other personally.[5][23] Some prisoners were prominent in their areas or in the region and were considered "trophy prisoners" and subjected to especially harsh treatment and vengeful torment. These "big shots", as the SA called them, included Heinrich Hirtsiefer, a former Prussian Vice Minister President, Wilhelm Bökenkrüger, a former director of the Wuppertal employment office, and Georg Petersdorff, the secretary of the Düsseldorf and Cologne Reichsbanner Gaue.[24] Despite the beatings and torture, of those prisoners who were released, most resumed their anti-Nazi activities.

Beatings at Kemna, as at other early concentration camps, were frequent, beginning with the "welcome beating" on arrival at the camp right through to having to run a gauntlet when leaving.[22] Because prisoners and guards were political opponents who were former neighbors and co-workers, punishment and torture at Kemna took on a personal nature.[5] Prisoners were brought to interrogations naked and gagged with cloth stuffed in their mouths, were tied to special whipping benches, where they were whipped with rubber clubs, whips and sticks. Bleeding, they were then locked in a cubicle under the stairs, where they could neither sit nor stand and cigarette smoke was blown through the air holes.[8] Beforehand, prisoners were made to eat "appetizers" of unsoaked salt herring smeared with lubricating grease or feces; when they regurgitated, they were forced to lick up the vomit.[8] In November, prisoners with fresh wounds were thrown into the cold waters of the Wupper and afterwards, made to stay in their wet clothes.[8] There were also simulated executions.[5] According to one former SA paramedic, about 25 prisoners attempted suicide;[25] others succeeded or simply died from the effects of the torture. Some survivors were crippled mentally or physically from their treatment, some for the rest of their lives.[5]

Beatings and torture were so routine at Kemna, that the SA-Oberscharführer Bruno Wolff, who served as deputy camp commandant during the last three months of Kemna's existence, was quite open when asked about prisoner abuse in an interview with the state's attorney in 1934.[26]

It is correct, that many prisoners in protective custody were beaten. The beatings take place mostly during interrogations ... Now, if the prisoners didn't want to say anything, then they were beaten, namely with fists and truncheons, sometimes also with a whip ... As far as the normal scope of beating prisoners is concerned, we have deemed it justified, since the official authorities, who at times viewed the beatings and at times took part in them, in part knew of the beatings and condoned and tolerated our approach. If in one or another case the mistreatment exceeded the normal scope, this was entirely the result of the behavior of the prisoner himself.[26]

— Bruno Wolff to the state's attorney, 1934

The brutality was aggravated by alcohol, particularly at night. Frequent and extreme drunkenness, which was a common problem within the SA, aggravated the situation at Kemna, as numerous former inmates later testified.[27] Typically, off-duty guards would go out drinking at nearby taverns and hours later, return inebriated, ready to take part in interrogations.[27] Sometimes, they would begin their own so-called interrogations, unsupervised. Local taverns, normally closed at the hours the guards were ready to drink, were faced with violence and threats if they did not re-open. Willi Veller's drinking was so out of control that he was incapable of showing up for work on a regular basis—and it was no secret.[27]

Because of the many severely injured prisoners who were brought to the local hospitals, rumors about Kemna began to spread, although cautiously, since speaking about the situation could land one in the same predicament.[8] On March 8, 1934, the state's attorney, Gustav Winckler, made his first report to his superior, Günther Joël, regarding Kemna.[28] On July 16, 1934, an account from a former Kemna prisoner appeared in the Wuppertal press.[8][28] After the Night of the Long Knives, when the SA was purged, its top leaders removed and its power curbed[8] just two weeks later, Joël began an investigation and soon had a number of witnesses willing to testify.[29]

Staff of SA guards at Kemna, ca. November 1933

Concurrently, opponents of Veller from within the party contacted Joël to warn him of the influence of the "Veller clique", Wolff and the Düsseldorf state police.[30] They also sought support from Rudolf Hess, then Hitler's deputy, who had the Reichsinspekteur conduct an investigation.[30] The Reichsinspekteur met with Winckler, who gave him the findings of his own investigation and urged him to resolve the charges unequivocally. Days later, on August 18, 1934, Hess issued a temporary injunction for "abuse of the gravest kind against protective custody prisoners at Camp Kemna" against Veller, Hans Pfeiffer, Hilgers, Wolff and three other SA leaders from Wuppertal. All were expelled from the Nazi Party.[30]

Although the ministry of justice had handed out letters of protection to their informants, one was taken into protective custody as soon as word of Winckler's investigation spread. The informant was released after five days, after Joël was informed and intervened. The regional Nazi leadership unleashed a barrage of attacks—including death threats—against Winckler, himself a Nazi Party member,[28] hauling him before the party court.[31] In mid-December 1934, Prussian Ministry of Justice state secretary, Roland Freisler ordered the files on the case to be turned over to the Nazi Gau leadership.[32] The party then immediately initiated proceedings at the highest party court in Munich, which was already dealing with objections to the expulsions. The main hearings were held February 19–20, 1935. The accused had numerous witnesses, including some prominent individuals.[31] It also issued an opinion on two deaths of former inmates attributed to their confinement, though the deaths took place in hospitals after Kemna had closed.[31][note 3]

Under pressure from Göring's personal adjutant, the case was later reopened[32] in hearings before the highest party court. The court found that the investigations had been conducted in a one-sided manner, with testimony coming only from "implacable enemies of the new state" whose credibility the judge questioned.[31] Although the accused had gone beyond the point "necessary to break the resistance"[31] and had "as a result, transgressed the Führer's order, that the National Socialist state well knows how to render his opponent harmless, but beyond that, eschews all vengeance". The court noted that the SA in the Wuppertal industrial area had to contend with especially persistent communist opponents, who never stopped trying to organize underground, even after the Machtergreifung; and that this behavior of the state's attorney has given impetus to this element. On April 1, 1935, more than a year after the camp was closed, the court lifted the injunction and gave the accused a reprimand.[31]

The state's attorney conducted three more examinations of witnesses and on January 18, 1936, sent his report and the case files to the Reich's ministry of justice. The report gave little attention to criminal proceedings, and little store was set by the witnesses.[31] Joël concluded by recommending that the entire case be suppressed.[34]

Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945, and barely two weeks later, Herbert Claus, a former Kemna prisoner and before that, a police wachtmeister, wrote a letter to the Wuppertal criminal police making serious accusations against a former Kemna guard, Hermann Warnstedt. Newly re-employed in the office was Johannes Pauli, another former Kemna prisoner, who, recognizing the charges from his own experience, set the cogs in motion and on July 12, 1945, Warnstedt was arrested. Other former Kemna prisoners also began to report their experiences and more arrests followed.[34]

On December 20, 1945, the Allied Control Council established a new law, "crimes against humanity", with the definition, “Atrocities and offenses, including but not limited to murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, or other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds whether or not in violation of the domestic laws of the country where perpetrated.”[34] Following this, on August 30, 1946, the British military government approved the jurisdiction of German courts to handle such crimes when they did not involve other nationals, but were German against Germans.[34]

In November 1946, the Wuppertal branch of the Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime (VVN) began work to re-open the case against Kemna and to pursue other cases of Nazi war crimes.[34] They located Winckler, who had been transferred to Kassel in 1935 and returned to Wuppertal in 1946.[28][31][note 4] Winckler began working on the case again.

The first major German trial regarding a concentration camp was about Kemna, the Kemna Prozeß in 1948.[5] Thirty people were charged, either with having been responsible for the crimes that took place there, or for having carried them out. The fact that guards and prisoners had often been known to one another from the Kampfzeit, the turbulent "fighting times" from 1919 through the 1920s, then became a defense as guards claimed that at Kemna, they had only tried to gain some delayed satisfaction for prior assaults.[22] Hilgers was sentenced to death. The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment in a Zuchthaus[12] and in 1956, he was granted clemency and was released on December 21.