Sachenhausen, as an institution, is a reflection of modern Germany’s attempt to balance recognizing the past actions of the Third Reich with the current need to minimize the connection between Germany’s current government and past governments. There are many contributing factors which German institutions have to weigh when finding an adequate balance. Institutions, such as the Sachenhausen concentration camp, need to consider the feelings of the site’s victims and their families, the feelings of those who acted as practitioners, the response of the international community and the local community, and historical accuracy for future generations. Officials at Sachenhausen are constantly working to create a balanced presentation of the site’s history despite the politically and emotionally charged atmosphere. Sachenhausen has come to articulate the past and the sense of victimization that plays a role in what it is like to be German.
Germany: A History
After Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich in 1933 he began to fill his government with like minded individuals. One of these was SS Heinrich Himmler, who Hitler appointed as head of the SS in 1936. Concentration camps in the first few years held prisoners who were considered enemies of the Reich. It was not until 1937 that prisoner populations began to include groups, such as Jews and Homosexuals, who were considered inferior to the Aryan race. In 1939 foreign nationals began to appear in concentration camps as the German War Machine conquered surrounding countries. Towards the end of the war Germans led prisoners on death marches to avoid the approaching Allied armies.
After the fall of the Third Reich governance of Germany was split between the Allies. Communist Russia was responsible for East Germany, which included the areas surrounding Berlin. Under the leadership of GDR concentration camps where used as prisons for members of the Nazi party and the SS. Some camps were also used as memorials to commemorate German resistance fighters who had been persecuted at those camps.
With the unification in 1989 came the end of the GDR in East Germany. The new government wanted to show its investment in democracy. One way it did this was by restructuring the way it showed awareness of the past. This involved a decentralization of the memorial system. Concentration camps where now to encompass three roles: documentation, preservation, and commemoration. The focus was shifted away from commemoration and towards the former two roles, while memorials were constructed in Berlin and elsewhere to commemorate victims. Individual concentration camps did this in different ways.
Sachenhausen: A History
Reichsführer – SS Heinrich Himmler had prisoners from small local detainment camps build the Sachenhausen Concentration camp in Oranienburg Germany during his first year as Chief of Police. Sachenhausen was the first concentration camp to be run by the SS and became a model for concentration camps built by the Nazis. In 1938 Himmler moved his offices from Berlin to Sachenhausen, making it the center of all concentration camp operations. Sachenhausen’s close proximity to Berlin, approximately 34 kilometers (21 miles), made it influential in the removal of political opponents to the Third Reich. These political prisoners made up the majority of the camp’s population in the first few years, until the Third Reich began to declare certain groups to be biologically inferior to the Aryan race. Between 1936 and 1945 between 140,000 and 200,000 prisoners entered Sachenhausen. Approximately 30,000 prisoners died at Sachenhausen during its eleven years of operation under the Nazis.
Sachenhausen was not a death camp; instead it was used primarily as a labor source. Prisoners were forced to work in the local brickworks, supplying the German war machine. Others were used to test various German products, such as the boots made for soldiers. Some were killed with prototypes of mass murder techniques, including the gas chamber. The primary victims of these machines were Soviet Prisoners of War. In 1945 the Nazis led 3,000 prisoners on a death march in an attempt to hide what they had been doing from the Soviet army who liberated the camp.
After the Soviets liberated the camp they began to use the facilities for their own purposes. In 1945 the camp was used to hold Nazi functionaries and political prisoners. It became the largest Soviet camp in Germany by 1948. By the time of the camp’s closing in 1950 it had held approximately 60,000 prisoners. On August 22, 1961 the camp was inaugurated as the Sachenhausen National Memorial. This memorial focused on political prisoners and resistance fighters held in at the camp during the Nazi era. The memorial was designed in a way that ignored the fact that Sachenhausen held other types of prisoners. After unification in 1989, Sachenhausen transformed into what it is today: a museum and a memorial.
The Issue
Under current administration Sachenhausen is dedicated to the “preservation of remnants; extensive documentation and differentiated presentation of the historical events…; promotion of a critical confrontation with history; and a critical evaluation and accurate reworking of the GDR Memorial design.” Sachenhausen is attempting to present visitors with its whole story, not just a single perspective. This is in line with the German political agenda to present their history in a way that recognizes the horrors that occurred, but separates modern Germans from those horrors. This is done by showing the past of the Germans who fought against Nazi propaganda and those who suffered because of that propaganda. Historically there has been a tendency to forget that the victims, especially those in Sachenhausen, were more than Jews, Homosexuals, and Gypsies; they were Germans. With the exception of foreign prisoners who came to the camp after the start of the war, the camp held people who considered themselves to be Germans. These people had lived their entire lives in Germany; they owned businesses, went to school, and paid taxes until one day the government decided that they were not German.
The idea that Germans were victimized during the Holocaust is only part of the story. Memorial sites, such as Sachenhausen, hold the responsibility to recognize that some Germans were not victims, but practitioners. For German politicians and the public it is easier to identify with the victims.
The fact that Germans played multiple roles during the Holocaust leaves today’s leaders at Sachenhausen and other memorial sites in the precarious position of deciding which stories to tell and which stories to not tell. This balance is important for the political and cultural stability of modern Germany as well as the acknowledgment and commemoration of victims and their families.
Sachenhausen achieves this balance through preservation, documentation and commemoration. The site is preserved by to a limited extent. The buildings have not been reconstructed, instead they are left to the elements. The staff use preventative measures, such as weather sealant on some buildings to help lessen deterioration, but nothing more is done. One site tour guide explained this process “consideration for the victims. We do not want to be seen as ‘rebuilding’ the concentration camps.” This would be a horrible slight against victims and a political nightmare, especially when the proximity of Sachenhausen to Berlin is considered.
The site has maintained the few records available about the site. While the Nazi’s were meticulous record keepers, they were also desperate to remove any trace of what they had done at Sachenhausen. Most documents exist from outside sources, and are maintained by site staff. This information is shared with the community through the on-site museum. It is a solitary building, standing in place of what was one the camp kitchen. The museum is focused on telling the story of the site from multiple angles, although the Jewish victim dominates the scene. The exhibit design tries to balance perspectives by presenting individual stories to visitors. A visitor can hear the thoughts of a Nazi soldier stationed at Sachenhausen in his letters home. The letters sit next to photographs of guardsmen, and an old uniform. Across the room are peak holes into the lives of the prisoners in the form of wooden toys and hidden notes. In a separate room you can hear prisoners and ex-guards tell their stories over a computer monitor.
Sachenhausen commemorates its history and those who died there with a memorial garden. Interestingly, the garden is not officially part of Sachenhausen. It lies outside of the camp gates, and has been built and added to by private groups. By keeping the commemorative side of the camp separate, both physically and symbolically, the site can maintain a ‘historic’ or ‘factorial’ appearance, but still recognize people’s emotional attachment to the site.
The staff at Sachenhausen believe balance is being maintained. My tour guide still noted that work needed to be done is certain areas, but the overall affect was a success. I agree with this assessment, and so do most visitors. The museum section of the site still needs to clarify who was kept prisoner here, and provide a little more depth to the side of the guard. Why did one become a guard? What happened to the guards after the war? These are questions that were never answered. Did the site purely house Jews? Russian soldiers? Political prisoners? The materials presented to the visitor answer these questions, but the visitor has to dig to find a complete answer, one is not readily available. Overall, Sachenhausen is a reflection of Germany’s attempt to find balance. There is the initial appearance of balance, but work still needs to be done around the edges before the scales of history can be perfectly even.
