Berga an der Elster was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp.[1] The Berga forced labour camp was located on the outskirts of the village of Schlieben. Workers were supplied by Buchenwald concentration camp and from a prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag IX-B; the latter contravened the provisions of the Third Geneva Convention and the Hague Treaties. Many prisoners died as a result of malnutrition, sickness (including pulmonary disease due to dust inhalation from tunnelling with explosives), and beatings,[2] including 73 American POWs.[3][4]
The labor camp formed part of Germany's secret plan to use hydrogenation to transform brown coal into usable fuel for tanks, planes, and other military machinery. However, the camp's additional purpose was Vernichtung durch Arbeit ("extermination through labor"), and prisoners were intentionally worked to death under inhumane working and living conditions, suffering from starvation as a result. This secondary purpose of extermination was carried out until the war's end, when the prisoners were subjected to a forced death march in an attempt to keep them ahead of the advancing Allied forces.[4]
- ^ "After 63 years, vet learns of brother's death in Nazi slave camp". CNN. 2008-11-20. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
- ^ "New photo: Nazis dig up mass grave of U.S. soldiers". CNN. 2009-04-24. Retrieved 2009-04-24.
Berga an der Elster was a slave labor camp where 350 U.S. soldiers were beaten, starved, and forced to work in tunnels for the German government. The soldiers were singled out for "looking like Jews" or "sounding like Jews," or dubbed as undesirables, according to survivors. More than 100 soldiers perished at the camp or on a forced death march.
- ^ Reich, Walter (2005-05-01). "Yanks in the Holocaust". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
- ^ a b Hitler's G.I. Death Camp (television documentary). National Geographic. 2012.