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Bensberg

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  Bensberg was a small subcamp established in a Nazi elite boarding school called the National Political Educational Institute (NAPOLA), which had moved into an 18th-century hunting lodge in Bensberg (a castle – Schloss Bensberg), twelve kilometers east of Cologne. SA-Gruppenführer Paul Holthoff, the school’s director, requested forced labourers to carry out repairs and extensions and in autumn 1943, 20 prisoners arrived from a subcamp in Cologne, although it is not known whether or not they were actually accommodated at the site. The building became an official Buchenwald subcamp in late 1944. Reports state that prisoners slept in one of the cellars, which may have been used for storing bicycles. The subcamp was initially classified as a detachment of Construction Brigade III, based in Cologne. However, from mid-May 1944 it became known as “Napola Bensberg.” Only 13 prisoners passed through the camp, making it the smallest Buchenwald subcamp. They were all skilled – roofers, carpe...
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Bad Salzungen (Ludwig Renntier)

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The site of the Leimbach camp   The site of the Ludwig Renntier subcamp is in Leimbach, on the eastern edge of Bad Salzungen. As at Heinrich Kalb, the SS accommodated the prisoners at Ludwig Renntier underground in an old mine chamber at the Kaiseroda I potash shaft in Hambach.    The Kaiseroda potash shaft They slept on the floor of the chamber on straw. No water supply was available there. From February 1945, an additional accommodation site was established, in a factory building on the site of a former potash plant in Leimbach. This was being used as an ammunition factory at the time. It included an infirmary, kitchen and clothing store. A political prisoner by the name of Ernst Hausmann was appointed by the SS as camp elder. Sixty-three escape attempts are recorded for this site, with one mass escape involving at least 27 prisoners. For further information, see the Buchenwald Subcamp Portal . The Kaiseroda potash shaft seen from the nearby road      
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Bad Salzungen (Heinrich Kalb)

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  The Heinrich Kalb site is upper left. In the spring of 1944, the potash mines along the Werra River began to be used for underground aircraft components production by BMW, which wanted to move part of its aircraft engine factory into these mines, particularly the mine owned by the Wintershall Group near Bad Salzungen. To help facilitate this, the SS established two new subcamps in early 1945, codenamed “Ludwig Renntier” and “Heinrich Kalb.” Prisoners from the Heinrich Kalb subcamp were forced to work at the Heiligenroda III mine complex in Springen, located approximately 12 kilometres northwest of Bad Salzungen. The prisoner accommodation was actually 300 metres underground, in a large disused gallery of the mine. This meant that sanitary and hygienic conditions there were awful. Despite this, although the arrangement was originally intended to be temporary, it became permanent, with prisoners only allowed to visit the surface for brief intervals. 500 prisoners from Buchenwald we...
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Bad Gandersheim

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  The site of the Brunshausen Sub-camp (Apparatebau, Plant A) lies in Brunshausen, an area North of the town of Bad Gandersheim situated in a shallow valley. Ernst Heinkel AG constructed a plant there for the manufacture of aircraft parts for the HE 219 night fighter. A subcamp was established to serve the factory in October 1944, although initially there were no actual facilities, with the monastery church on the NE of Brunshausen serving as accommodation. The building had been neglected and there were no beds, meaning that prisoners had to sleep on the floor on straw mattresses. It was also unheated and the windows were broken. This was the situation until January 1945 when a barracks camp was constructed immediately south of the plant. This consisted of three wooden barracks used for living quarters, with a fourth used as an infirmary. Both the plant and the camp was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.   The first 200 prisoners arrived from Buchenwald on 2 nd October 1944...
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Bad Berka

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  Bad Berka was an area in which prisoners were put to work undertaking heavy track maintenance and construction work for Thüringische Eisenbahn-AG. The prisoners were brutally treated and malnourished, suffering exhaustion and brutal treatment. There was no specific subcamp here, apart from Tonndorf (see separate entry) and prisoners from other subcamps and working parties often marched through the Bad Berka area during evacuation in the face of the advancing Allies.
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Augustdorf (Sennelager)

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  The Senne, a large expanse of landscape to the east of Augustdorf, has been used for military training since the 19 th century. German preparations for war expanded this area significantly, including a new barracks complex constructed in 1937. This was given the name Nordlager (North Camp) in 1939. From September 1944, units of the Waffen SS were based there and prisoners from Buchenwald arrived in November 1944 to carry out construction work. This required a new subcamp which the SS gave the name “SS-Panzer-Ausbildungs- und Ersatzregiment" (SS Panzer Training and Replacement Regiment), or ‘Sennelager’. The exact location of the prisoner’s accommodation is unknown, as is the nature of the tasks they were required to carry out. Medical care was probably provided by Waffen SS medical staff. Some prisoners were transferred back to Buchenwald due to illness, including conditions such as bacterial skin infections, wound infections or purulent inflammation. One prisoner died of pneum...
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Aschersleben (female subcamp)

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  The Junkers plant used both male and female prisoners from the start of the war. However, in January 1945, the SS sent an additional group of 500 Jewish female prisoners to Aschersleben. They came from Belgium, Germany, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Slovakia and had previously been incarcerated at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and arrived at Aschersleben from there. Around 200 of these women occupied a separate camp located in an annex to Hall V of the plant, with the accommodation for the others probably dispersed in various locations across the site. Their accommodation included beds, running water and heating. During daytime air raids they were instructed to go to an air raid bunker beneath the plant, and for night raids to remain in their quarters. The women were put to work cutting, fitting, machining, and component assembly. This involved tasks such as bolting parts together and using drilling machines. They were supervised by female SS guards and worked 12-hour shifts, d...
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