In April, 1945, Soviet troops discovered the nearly vacant premises of the infamous concentration camp “Sachsenhausen” near Oranienburg, just north of Berlin. On April 21, at least 33,000 men, women and children, members of nearly all European nations, had been force-marched out of the camp, in north-westerly direction, leaving behind an indescribable site.
3,000 prisoners, too ill to be moved, remained behind.
“Sachsenhausen”, completed in December 1937, with 51 barracks, housing for SS personnel and a detention complex with prisoners’ cells, initially held appr. 2500 people. Until the camp was finally closed in 1950, more than 250,000 men, women and children passed through, or died within its walls, 50,000 to 60,000 of them after the end of WWII.
As early as December, 1938 the camp received thousands of prisoners who were described in the records as ‘vagrants’ or people with criminal records. At this time the camp was extended to 68 barracks.
(The following information is not in any way intended to compare human rights violations, diminish atrocities committed by the Hitler regime, or weigh suffering against suffering, nor pass moral judgment of any kind. It is not even with certainty that the author lists the youngest who died after 1945, according to Gerhard Finn’s brochure “Sachsenhausen, 1936–1950”, © Westkreuz Verlag Berlin/Bonn, 1988. She recognizes none of these names. It is merely a possibility that some of those boys of the Home Guards unit at Stolpe Field who were not killed or wounded, may have been imprisoned there.)
In May or early June 1945, parts of the Sachsenhausen site were taken over by the Soviet Secret Police (the former NKVD), and a “special camp” was established, and German PoWs, political prisoners, former “DPs”, and Soviet military prisoners, among others, were held there, the groups strictly segregated.
Though steadfastly denied, the Soviet “special camps” did contain young people who were under the age of 18 when detained. The Red Cross Search Services were aware of 3,125 such prisoners, of whom 1,089 had died by the year 1952.
According to the memoir of L.I., aged 14 in 1945, who was dragged out of his Berlin home by German orderlies just days after the war ended, and formally arrested by Soviet agents, there were many Hitler Youth boys even younger than himself, kept in Sachsenhausen. Like him most of them were never charged, let alone convicted; they never learned what they were accused of. The official Soviet assumption was that “Volkssturm”, i.e. “Home Guards” had not existed as legitimate military units, and that all these boys had in fact been partisans.
L.I. was released from Sachsenhausen in August, 1948.
Prisoners secretly kept lists of comrades’ names who passed away, their ages at the time of arrest, and their hometown or village. Though these lists were confiscated and destroyed when found, some survived and became part of the Sachsenhausen archives. The families were never notified of the deaths. Only in 1949 were prisoners permitted to get in touch with relatives.
Here follows a random list of the youngest, and the year they died:
Ilse Armster, 15, Rudisleben, † 1950;
Herbert Arndt, 15, Puttlitz, † 1949;
Willi Behnke, 14, Kleitz (?), † 1948;
Wolfgang Bernd, 15, Berlin, † 1949;
Rudi Braun, 15, Berlin, † 1947;
Werner Brücke, 15, Hohen Neuendorf, † 1947;
Hans-Joachim Claus, 15, Müncheberg, † 1949;
Heinz Dabel, 14, Stralsund, † 1948;
Harri Darms, 15, Berlin, † 1945;
Eberhard Drengh, 15, Schwabhausen, † 1948;
Kurt Engelmann, 15, Malchow, † 1949;
Albert Fassbinder, 15, Berlin, † 1947;
Heinz Fleischhauer, 15, Saalfeld, † 1949;
Fritz Förster, 15, Halle, † 1950;
Dieter Geisler, 13, Naumburg, † 1949;
Werner Gerlach, 15, Stolberg, † 1947;
Kurt Günther, 13, Kölleda, † 1948;
Werner Haack, 15, Schwabhausen, † 1947;
Herbert Hassmann, 14, Schwerin, † 1949;
Harald Heiland, 15, Gera, † 1949;
Gerhard Heinrich, 14, Gelsenkirchen, † 1949;
Hans Henk, 14, Stralsund, † 1947;
Willi Hermann, 15, Rostock, † 1949;
Kurt Holzmann, 15, Berlin, † 1950;
Walter Janoschenski, 15, Güstrow, † 1949;
Rudi Kachulke, 16, Hennigsdorf, † 1949;
Willi Kaiser, 14, Oranienburg, † 1949;
Manfred Karl, 14, Weissenfels, † 1949;
Hans Klaus, 15, Münchehofe, † 1949;
Günther Klautsch, 14, Oranienbaum, † 1947;
Herbert Klain, 14, Ammelshain, † 1949;
Hans Kmieog, 14, Schipkau, † 1949;
Karl Heinz Langner, 12, Jena, † 1948;
Hans Laskowiak, 13, Gröningen, † 1948;
Erhard Melzer, 14, Leipzig, † 1949;
Wolfgang Möller, 15, Berlin, † 1947;
Günter Nowak, 15, Dahme, † 1947;
Hans Pniock, 15, Schipkau, † 1949;
Günther Polkus, 15, Berlin, † 1949;
Heinz Polz, 14, Cammer, † 1948;
Hans Prick, 13, Berlin, † 1949;
Erwin Ramm, 15, Finkenherd, † 1948;
Hans Richter, 15, Berlin, † 1948;
Heinz Schaumburg, 15, Greussen, † 1949;
Heinz Schulz 15, Berlin, † 1947;
Heinz Thienemann, 15, Prenzlau, † 1947;
Fritz Uhlmann, 15, Gross-korbetha, † 1950;
Heinz Wegner, 15, Zeetze, † 1947;
Siegfried Woschesch, 15, Pulsberg, † 1949;
Heinz Zichs, 15, Weimar, † 1949;
Günter Ziegner, 15, Treuenbrietzen, † 1948;
Gerhard Zimmermann, 15, Eberswalde, † 1948;
Siegfried Zipfel, 14, Saalfeld, † 1949.