Flossenburg

Flossenbürg was the 4th camp to open in Germany , after Buchenwald , Dachau and Sachsenhausen .
The location was choosen by Himmler in 1938 as it's location was close to a granite quarry runned by the SS . In this way Himmler could provide not only the quarry , but the plane and armament factories nearby with slave workers .

The first non German prisoners arrived on 5 april 1940 while the camp allready had German inmates .
The SS itself said that Flossenbürg was a "hard regime" camp , meaning mall nutrition , frequent beatings , bad hygiene and lack of medical care ... .

The camp had 16 huge wooden barracks to house the prisoners . Like most camps it also had the gaschambers and execution spots in it's grounds .
The camp had 93 subcamps so it was a huge complex .

A term was used to mock and insult the Polish prisoners .... POLAK .... what this meant is something I don't know ....

The camp had electrified barb wire and watch towers to prevent any escape attempts .

Flossenbürg originally was designed to house 1600 prisoners , but it was expanded until at a point it housed more then 111.000 prisoners , 95.400 men and 16.000 women . About 73.000 people died in Flossenbürg .

Flossenbürg saw 4 campcommanders in it's lifetime , Jacob Weiseborn , Egon Zill , Max Koegel and Karl Künster wich offcourse were SS officers and could do whatever they wanted with their slaveworkers .

Wilhelm Canaris , chief of the Abwehr and admiral of the Kriegsmarine was sended to this camp ... and also died here .
He was charged with treason and executed in Flossenbürg on 9 april 1945 , 2 weeks before the Americans liberated the camp .
2.000 prisoners were found alive in the camp , abandoned by the SS as they were not fit enough to work anymore . The other prisoners were send on a death march to Dachau camp . Many died during this march , if one was too tired , he got picked out and shot , then buried at the side of the road .
Flossenbürg was liberated on 23 april 1945 by the Americans .

After it's liberation the Americans made the German civilians go and look at the pile of bodies , the stench was horrible , the sight terrifying ... .
Some SS guards were dressed as prisoners in the hopes they could get away but they were spotted and pointed out to the Americans by the inmates .