THE MASSACRE OF OVER 1,000 SLAVE LABOURERS– THE LARGEST NUMBER OF WHOM WERE POLES.

The massacre of over 1,000 slave labourers – the largest number of whom were Poles – occurred in the town of Gardelegen on 13 April 1945, less than a month before the surrender of Nazi Germany brought the war in Europe to an end.

As Allied forces advanced, the Nazi SS had been moving concentration camp prisoners towards the interior of the Third Reich. One such group was being transported from the Mittelbau-Dora and Hannover-Stöcken camps.

After the transport stopped in Gardelegen, over 1,000 of the prisoners were – with the help of the local population – herded into a barn that was then sealed and set on fire. Those who tried to escape were shot dead.

While the perpetrators had then hoped to destroy evidence of the crime, the rapid advance of the US 102nd Infantry Division – which arrived just one day after the massacre – meant that Allied forces discovered and documented the remains of the victims and were able to interview 11 prisoners who had survived.

The condition of the bodies made it impossible to identify most victims. But among the 186 whose nationality was determined, the majority were Poles.

The US force’s commander Major-General Frank Keating ordered the local population to give a proper burial to the victims, creating a cemetery and memorial to them.

In 1947, a US military tribunal sentenced the SS officer overseeing the transport, Erhard Brauny, to life in prison.

 However, the Nazi district leader in Gardelegen responsible for the massacre, Gerhard Thiele, went into hiding after the war and lived for decades under a false identity, thereby evading justice before his death.