On April 7, 1945, Allied bombers attack the Lüneburg freight yard. The bombs also hit a freight train, in whose wagons around 400 prisoners from the Wilhelmshaven concentration camp were crammed. Around 80 of the surviving prisoners escape, are captured shortly thereafter and monitored by the Wehrmacht - until they are brutally killed on April 11. SS man Gustav Jepsen was only one of three accused in a war crimes trial in 1946 to be found guilty. A lawyer is now working on the case again.
Who is really to blame for the mass murder of 80 concentration camp prisoners on April 11, 1945 in a field near the Lüneburg freight yard? For 74 years, this question seems to have been clarified, at least legally:The SS man Gustav Jepsen, who was then responsible for the transport of prisoners, to which the murdered belonged, was found guilty in a war crimes trial under British leadership in Lüneburg in 1946. There are numerous documents from the complex Lüneburg process. The process log alone is 300 pages long. However, the documents from the past apparently also contain some information that has not yet been included in historiography. At least that is the opinion of Dörte von Westernhagen. The 76-year-old lawyer from Lüneburg examined the case from back then in detail, including with the help of documents from the London War Office. She is currently writing a book about the case. Because she is convinced that not only Gustav Jepsen should have been held accountable for the horrible killing.
Prisoner transport in cattle cars from the Neuengamme satellite camp
April 11, 1945 marks the brutal end of a prisoner transport from Wilhelmshaven to the "Alter Banter Weg" concentration camp there. It starts on April 3, 1945 and consists of a train with four cattle cars. Around 400 inmates of the concentration camp, a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, are crammed into it. The prisoners are guarded by a good dozen marines under the command of SS man Gustav Jepsen. Most of the prisoners are French, but there are also resistance fighters from Belgium and Holland and Jews from Hungary. They are to be relocated to Neuengamme. Inhuman conditions prevail on the train journey. There is no water, no bread - for days. After several stops, the wagons are attached to a long supply train that is to deliver petrol, food and other goods to the Wehrmacht. None of this benefits the prisoners on the train.
After the bombardment:80 escaped concentration camp prisoners were murdered
This train reaches Lüneburg on the morning of April 7th. At this point, dozens of men are already dead, dying of starvation and exhaustion. Only a few hours later, dozens of prisoners died in the wagons when American bombers attacked the freight depot and also hit the prisoner transport. Some of the survivors are able to escape from the wrecked wagons and try to hide in the city, among other places. But almost all of them are caught again and herded together with the other survivors in a field at the goods yard. SS man Gtustav Jepsen decides that around 140 of the men will be taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by truck on April 9 and 10. However, 80 of the prisoners remain in Lüneburg. The following day they are brutally killed by SS man Jepsen and the marines. Most of them shot in the neck, as Lüneburg witnesses later reported in the court process, says von Westernhagen after reviewing the logs. Other concentration camp prisoners were simply killed. Later exhumations would have shown that.
War crimes trial:Only SS man Jepsen convicted
"It wasn't just Jepsen's thing," von Westernhagen is certain:"Everyone knew about it. It was a deal between the Mayor of Lüneburg at the time, Johannes Hauschild, the Gestapo chief Friedrich-Joachim Freitag, the chief of the security police Otto Müller and the guards of the prisoners." According to von Westernhagen, these conclusions can be drawn if, in addition to the court verdict, one also takes a close look at the minutes of more than 30 witness interviews before the start of the trial. The author was provided with these logs by the London War Office. Accordingly, among other things, the Gestapo provided weapons for the massacre. And the police waited until the perpetrators had calmly left Lüneburg by train. In the war crimes trial of 1946, however, only Gustav Jepsen was convicted. Although also accused, Gestapo chief Freitag and police chief Müller were acquitted. Dörte von Westernhagen now wants to use her book to prove that the judgment of the British judges was wrong. According to their spokesman Jens Binner, the book is expected to be published next year by the publishing house of the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation.
Russian forced laborers bury the bodies
Not only the events of April 1945 are currently being put in a new light in Lüneburg, but also the memorial to the victims. It is located in a forest on the outskirts of Lüneburg. There, where all the dead from the transport and the subsequent execution on April 11 and 12, 1945 were buried in a mass grave. It should have been 244 bodies. Russian forced laborers had to remove the dead. According to research by the Lüneburg History Workshop, the police and the city are responsible for organizing the action and transporting the corpses from the execution field to the forest.
Punitive action:NSDAP members have to move corpses
Those responsible are said to have hoped that the British troops, who reached the city shortly afterwards, would not find the victims, says von Westernhagen. But at least this plan didn't work out. Half a year after the crime, members of the NSDAP in Lüneburg had to dig up the corpses again in a punitive action by the British army and put them in coffins to bury them in the same place with dignity. A cemetery of honor was set up.
Lüneburg Memorial in the Tiergarten:Reconstructed Cemetery
Over the decades, however, he was more and more forgotten. The six long rows of graves were leveled in 1956 and rhododendrons were planted on them, which grew there for almost 60 years. After several attempts, the Lüneburg History Workshop and victims' associations succeeded in convincing the city officials to reconstruct the honorary cemetery. In the last five years this has happened bit by bit. 156 of the former 256 concentration camp prisoners still rest at the memorial in the Tiergarten Lüneburg. On May 4th, the new memorial was to be officially opened to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the war, with victims' representatives from various nations. In the wake of the Corona crisis, however, this date had to be canceled first, as cultural advisor Katrin Schmäl says. A new date has not yet been set.