• Source: Lichtenburg concentration camp

Lichtenburg was a Nazi concentration camp, housed in a Renaissance castle in Prettin, near Wittenberg in the Province of Saxony. Along with Sachsenburg, it was among the first to be built by the Nazis, and was operated by the SS from 1933 to 1939. It held as many as 2000 male prisoners from 1933 to 1937 and from 1937 to 1939 held female prisoners. It was closed in May 1939, when the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women was opened, which replaced Lichtenburg as the main camp for female prisoners.




Operation


Details about the operation of Lichtenburg, held by the International Tracing Service, only became available to researchers in late 2006. An account of the way the camp was run may be read in Lina Haag's book A Handful of Dust or How Long the Night. Haag was perhaps the best known survivor of Lichtenburg, having obtained release before it was shut down.
Lichtenburg was among the first concentration camps in Nazi Germany operating under the SS from 13 June 1933; it became a kind of model for numerous subsequent establishments. Soon overcrowded, the detention conditions became increasingly aggravated. Most of the inmates were political prisoners, and so-called habitual offenders (Gewohnheitsverbrecher).
In 1936 Heinrich Himmler appointed Hermann Baranowski commandant of the camp. From 1937 on it became a camp only for women. In 1939 the SS transferred 900 Lichtenburg prisoners to Ravensbrück, which were its first female prisoners.
The castle today houses a regional museum and exhibit about Lichtenburg's use during the Nazi period.




Personnel






= Camp commandant

=
May 1934 – July 1934: SS-Brigadeführer Theodor Eicke
July 1934 – March 1935: SS-Obersturmbannführer Bernhard Schmidt
March 1935 – March 1936: SS-Standartenführer Otto Reich
April 1936 – October 1936: SS-Standartenführer Hermann Baranowski
November 1936 – July 1937: SS-Standartenführer Hans Helwig
July 1937 – December 1937: Commisar Alexander Piorkowski




= Protective custody chief

=
July 1934 – February 1935: Edgar Entsberger
February 1935 – April 1935 Karl Otto Koch
April 1935 – October 1936 Heinrich Remmert
November 1936 – August 1937 Egon Zill




= Director of women's camp

=
December 1937 – May 1939 Günther Tamaschke




= Deputy director of camp

=
December 1937 – August 1938 Alexander Piorkowski
September 1938 – May 1939 Max Koegel




Notable inmates


Olga Benario-Prestes, German-Brasilian resistance fighter
Armin T. Wegner, documentor of Armenian genocide
Walter Czollek, Communist
Arthur Dietzsch, Communist
Friedrich Ebert junior, Politician, son of Friedrich Ebert
Werner von Fichte, SA general
Philomena Franz, Sinti writer
Philipp Fries Socialist politician
Paul Frölich, journalist and biographer of Rosa Luxemburg
Ernst Grube (Socialist), Socialist politician (not to be confused with Ernst Grube (b. 1932), son of Jewish & Communist parents)
Lotti Huber, actress
Erich Knauf, journalist and songwriter, later executed for making jokes
Wolfgang Langhoff, actor
Hans Litten, lawyer
Wilhelm Leuschner, unionist
Hans Lorbeer, author
Karl Mache, Socialist politician
Charles Regnier, actor
Ernst Reuter, Social Democrat
Kurt von Ruffin, actor
Gotthard Sachsenberg, WWI ace and later WP politician
Werner Scholem, Communist politician
Fritz Thurm (1883–1937), Social Democrat
Lisa Ullrich, Communist politician
Ilse Unterdörfer missionary




See also


Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany




References






External links


[1]
Lichtenburg page
[2]
Visit to the camp by SS officer Theodor Eicke (image)




Further reading


Sarah Helm: Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration camp For Women. 2015 Penguin Random House, pps 4, 17-19, Prisoners sent from Lichtenberg to Ravensbruck 6-21.
Stefan Hördler: Before the Holocaust: Concentration Camp Lichtenburg and the Evolution of the Nazi Camp System. Holocaust and Genocide Studies 25, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 100–126.
Nikolaus Wachsmann: KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. 2015 Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Maria Mandl
• Lichtenburg concentration camp
• List of Nazi concentration camps
• Ravensbrück concentration camp
• Emma Zimmer
• Max Koegel
• Lichtenburg
• Günther Tamaschke
• Sachsenburg concentration camp
• Theodor Eicke
• Alexander Piorkowski