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Gardelegen massacre

1945 in GermanyApril 1945 events in EuropeCommons category link is locally definedConflicts in 1945Massacres committed by Nazi Germany
Massacres in 1945Massacres in GermanyNazi SSNazi war crimes in GermanyWorld War II massacres of Poles
Gardelegen Barn
Gardelegen Barn

The Gardelegen massacre was a massacre perpetrated by the local population (Volkssturm, Hitlerjugend and local firefighters) of the northern German town of Gardelegen, with minor direction from the SS, near the end of World War II. On April 13, 1945, on the Isenschnibbe estate near the town, the troops forced over 1,000 slave laborers who were part of a transport train evacuated from the Mittelbau-Dora and Hannover-Stöcken concentration camps into a large barn, which was then set on fire. One thousand and sixteen prisoners, of whom the largest number were Poles, were burned alive or shot trying to escape. The crime was discovered two days later by Company F, 2nd Battalion, 405th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 102nd Infantry Division, when the U.S. Army occupied the area. Eleven prisoners were found alive – seven Poles, three Russians and a Frenchman. The testimonies of survivors were collected and published by Melchior Wańkowicz in 1969, in the book From Stołpców to Cairo. Gardelegen became a part of the newly established German Democratic Republic in 1947 and is now in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Gardelegen massacre (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

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Latitude Longitude
N 52.537777777778 ° E 11.421944444444 °
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39638 (Gardelegen)
Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
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Gardelegen Barn
Gardelegen Barn
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