Gardelegen (Massacre on 13 April 1945)

In mid-April 1945, "evacuation transports" from the satellite camps of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and from the Hannover-Stöcken satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp reached the Gardelegen region. Bombing raids had destroyed locomotives and railway tracks, preventing the trains carrying the prisoners from going any farther than Mieste near Gardelegen. The prisoners were therefore taken off the trains and forced to continue on foot in several columns. These death marches, during which several hundred prisoners were beaten to death or shot, ended at an evacuated barracks in Gardelegen.

On the night of 13 April 1945, after consulting with the local Nazi Party official Gerhard Thiele, the SS drove the prisoners out of the city and into an isolated barn on the Isenschnibbe estate. The SS then set light to the straw in the barn, which had been soaked with petrol. 1,016 prisoners burned to death, suffocated or were shot by the SS as they attempted to escape the flames.

American troops reached Gardelegen on the evening of 14 April. They arranged for the victims of the massacre be interred properly in individual graves and ordered the residents of Gardelegen and the surrounding towns to bury the bodies.