KZ Esterwegen
Encyclopedia
KZ Esterwegen was one of a series of camps first established in the Emsland
Emsland
Landkreis Emsland is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany named after the river Ems. It is bounded by the districts of Leer, Cloppenburg and Osnabrück, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia , the district of Bentheim and the Netherlands .- History :For a long time the region of the Emsland was...

 region of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 near Papenburg
Papenburg
Papenburg is a city in the district of Emsland in Lower Saxony, Germany, situated at the river Ems. It is known for its large shipyard, the Meyer-Werft, which specializes in building cruise liners.-Districts:...

 in 1933 as prison camps for political prisoners by the Nazi regime. It was one of 15 camps in the Emsland region and was designated as "Lager VII".
In 1941 it became a sub-camp of the concentration camp of Neuengamme. Esterwegen was a "strafgefangenenlager", a camp designed particularly for 'special punishment' primarily for political prisoners and those opposed to the Nazi regime.

SS Hauptscharführer Gustav Sorge
Gustav Sorge
Gustav Hermann Sorge Gustav Hermann Sorge Gustav Hermann Sorge (April 24, 1911 (Rydzyna) – 1978 (Rheinbach, prison), nicknamed "Der eiserne Gustav" (The Iron Gustav) for his brutality, was an SS-Hauptscharführer and a guard at Esterwegen concentration camp in the Emsland region of Germany prior to...

, nicknamed "The Iron Gustav" for his brutality, was a guard at Esterwegen prior to being assigned to Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...

. He was convicted of war crimes after the Nazi defeat.

Prosecutor: "Are your depositions according to which you used to beat the detainees daily true?"

Sorge: "Yes, they are."

Prosecutor: "If a detainee coughed, did you beat him?"

Sorge: "If he coughed or looked unfriendly, I beat him."

Prosecutor: "And what if he was in good humor and looked friendly? Did you beat him?"

Sorge: "Then, too, I would find grounds to beat him."

Prosecutor: "Therefore, you used to beat people when they looked discontent or in bad humor, but also when they were in good humor."

Sorge: "Yes. Finding Gründe, (grounds), for beating was always an easy matter to me."


The most famous prisoner was writer and editor of the weekly antifascist magazine: Die Weltbühne: Carl von Ossietzky
Carl von Ossietzky
Carl von Ossietzky was a German pacifist and the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize. He was convicted of high treason and espionage in 1931 after publishing details of Germany's alleged violation of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding an air force, the predecessor of the Luftwaffe, and...

, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935.
Comedian Werner Finck
Werner Finck
Werner Finck was a German comedian, an actor with "comic bones". He could read the phone book and it would seem extremely funny.-Life:...

was detained in Esterwegen for six weeks.

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