Crumbling remnants whisper tales. Right here before you stands the Ehemaliger Arrestbunker. This seemingly unremarkable ruin is a poignant piece of Hamburg’s dark past. It was part of the Neuengamme concentration camp. A place of unimaginable suffering and cruelty.
The Ehemaliger Arrestbunker wasn’t just a holding cell. It was a prison within a prison. Originally a 7.70 m x 5.30 m klinker building. It was built into an existing barrack. The walls were founded on existing strip foundations of the barrack. Inside were five tiny cells. Each cell measured a mere 1.25 m x 3.10 m. They each had a small barred window.
But the Ehemaliger Arrestbunker’s grim purpose went beyond confinement. It served as an execution site for the Gestapo. Both Gestapo prisoners and concentration camp inmates were murdered here. Many were hanged in the corridor. Others were shot.
In 1942 a chilling transformation occurred. The bunker’s windows were sealed with metal flaps. Heating coils and ventilators were installed. So were chutes in the roof. These modifications were sinister. They were preparation for gassings. Two horrific events took place here. In September 1942 197 Soviet prisoners of war were gassed using Zyklon B. In November another 251 were killed.
The horrors continued through the war’s end. In the final weeks Gestapo prisoners were hanged here. Often 50 or more per week. On April 21 and 23 1945 71 people were executed. They were prisoners from the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel police prison. Some fought back barricading themselves inside. SS-Obersturmführer Anton Thumann threw hand grenades into the cells. The resulting explosion killed the inmates and destroyed part of the structure.
After the camp’s liberation the Ehemaliger Arrestbunker was briefly used as a detention barracks. It was enlarged with around 10 to 12 cells. Then it was equipped with central heating. Yet in 1950 it was demolished. The building is now reduced to its foundations. A stark reminder of the brutality that once unfolded within its walls. The Ehemaliger Arrestbunker’s ruins stand as a testament. They remind us of the atrocities committed. They are a haunting reminder of the past. A place where we must never forget.