New Statesman, "New Series", Vol. 7, Issue 152, "Saturday, January 20, 1934", S. 77f.: "The Terror continues. Sonnenburg Concentration Camp" (shortened)

mit Bezug zu: Kurt Wagenseil, Grete Lichtenstein (Erich Mühsam), Fanal-Verlag, "Bloomsbury Group", "New Statesman": "Index of General Articles" 1934, "Neue Weltbühne"

 

According to British Library guidance, if the article is unsigned, copyright expires 70 years after publication. Hopefully this text, published anonymously before more than seventy years, is in the public domain. If not please mail me.

"THE TERROR CONTINUES

SONNENBURG CONCENTRATION CAMP.

I

[The impression that the Nazi Terror has now ceased appears to have gained ground in this country, thanks to the efforts of the German Ministry of Propaganda and of sympathisers here. In fact it continues unabated, though with increased secrecy. As an important additional evidence of this, we print the following translation of part of a report (covering the events of several months) which recently found its way out of Sonnenburg Concentration Camp. The statement has been compared and found to tally in detail with the experiences of others who were present at the time.-ED. N.S. & N.]

Ar the outset the prisoners were guarded by S. A. men and a police-squad told off for 'special service.' Things were bad enough then, but the police squad under Lieutenant Sigmund which came afterwards dealt with even greater rigour with the prisoners. Sergeant-Major E. Bauer was the man who distinguished himself most in this respect.

One example: On July 14th, 1933, all the inmates of the West Wing had one forenoon to practise getting up and lying down 206 times, and to run round from time to time, wheeling in line, etc. As a result, thirty-six fainted and were carried off the place; there was not one malingerer among them. The men were nothing but lumps of mud streaming with perspiration. The torture was continued during the afternoon; again there were people fainting; and even in the evening, when there was to have been the so-called 'Community-hour,' Bauer continued his torments. Those who had collapsed were carried across the Eastern quadrangle into hospital. There the prisoners of the East and North wings had their free hour. When they saw how their half-dead comrades were being carried past them, they stopped singing the gay songs which they had been ordered to sing and began to sing the song I Had a Comrade. This was regarded as a mutiny; and so the same fate was meted out to the prisoners of the North and East Wing. For two days all prisoners were subjected to the drill as I have described it. Seventy per cent. were ill after that. Lieutenant Sigmund stopped the infantry-drill after that, but he also forbade every foregathering of the prisoners; smoking, too, was stopped for a week. The Lieutenant made us a speech in which he said that the prisoners should not complain about bad treatment and should not bring forward the excuse that they had families at home. They should have their eyes on Russia; there the family was destroyed and polygamy introduced, etc.

At the end of July, the police squad was replaced by the S.S. Troop 27 from Frankfurt-on-Oder. During the first period of his service Max Muller, an S.S. man, commanded the infantry drill. Indescribable scenes happened during his command. He considered it his task to make the newcomers 'rally.' A Social Democrat workman from Frankfurt-on-Oder could not stand this torture any longer. He hanged himself in the East Wing on Station 3 in his cell. As the cause of his death they gave 'unsound mind.'

[...]."

Erich Mühsam was interned in Lehrter Street Berlin, Sonnenburg, Berlin-Plötzensee, Brandenburg, Oranienburg / In Lehrter Straße Berlin, Sonnenburg, Berlin-Plötzensee, Brandenburg, Oranienburg war Erich Mühsam interniert. "The New Statesman and Nation", Vol. 8, Issue 199, "Saturday, December 15, 1934", p. 898: "The Death of Erich Mühsam" by Kurt Hiller, "recently appeared in Weltbühne". Title could reply to "Few Intellectuals of X, A: 'A Nazi Concentration Camp'" (Issue 131, "Saturday, August 26, 1933", S. 231).

S.a. "Folterhölle Sonnenburg. Tatsachen- und Augenzeugenbericht eines ehemaligen Schutzhäftlings", verantwortlich für die Herausgabe ist Willy Trostel, Zürich / Paris: Mopr-Verlag [1934].

 

Register der Überlieferung der Übersetzungen bis 1950
Personenregister (Übersetzungen etc.)
Adressregister
Zurück zum Inhaltsverzeichnis
E-Mail: kriswagenseil [at] gmx [point] de