The National Socialists set up the largest concentration camp in north-west Germany in 1938 in Neuengamme in the south-east of Hamburg. Tens of thousands of people were deported there.
In 1938, the largest concentration camp in north-west Germany was established in what was then the village of Neuengamme. During the course of the Second World War, the Gestapo and the SS deported tens of thousands of people from all occupied countries in Europe as concentration camp prisoners. The reasons for their admission were mostly their resistance to the German occupation regime, rebellion against forced labor or racially motivated persecution. Only half of the prisoners of the Neuengamme concentration camp survived the time there.
A former target track becomes a concentration camp
In 1938, the SS company Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH entered into purchase negotiations with the city of Hamburg for a 50-hectare site in Neuengamme. There was a brick factory that had been shut down for years and areas that were suitable for quarrying clay. The contractors reached an agreement that included the construction of a city-funded concentration camp and the supply of 20 million bricks a year for the redevelopment of the banks of the Elbe.
From December 12, 1938, the brick factory started operations with 100 prisoners from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, who were guarded by 40 SS men from the Buchenwald concentration camp.