Berlin – Schöneweide

1943 was the year when the German armies lost initiative in the war and its main task was to defend conquered areas. This required a total effort by the German people and society, a total war as Goebbels put it. This meant that Germans who worked in the war industry were called in for military service and these were replaced by forced labor. Responsibility for the recruitment of forced labourers was entrusted to Fritz Sauckel (Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz). Sauckel’s task was to forcibly deport people from occupied countries and put them to work in German war industries. The forced labourers were put in special camps (Zwangarbeitslager) which were set up near existing industries where they were forced to work. One such camp was camp 75/76 in Berlin-Schöneweide. The camp consisted of 13 barracks. After the war, the barracks were taken over by the Soviet Red army, which until the mid-nineties used them as storages. They were then handed over to the city of Berlin.