Monday

Today we visit Flössenberg, the site of the infamous concentration camp where Deitrich Bonhöffer was killed just two weeks before the camp was liberated in 1945. It was a difficult day. I am seldom affected by places and sites, but this sent me into a spiral. One enters the camp trough the same gate 100,000 others entered through. But they entered to a life and death of miserable horror. As one survivor put it, "There is a thin veneer of humanity that keeps us civilized.



Map of the Camp at Flössenberg

Upon arrival the prisoners were left to stand on the parade ground for hours. Only then would they be taken down to the "processsing room" where they were forced to remove all clothing, shed all personal effects, and shaved by other prisoners from head to toe. Then they were herded with beatings from rubber hoses into the shower room where they were hosed down with boiling water or ice cold water depending on the mood of the guards. Again, they were forced out onto the parade grounds to stand naked in scorching heat during the summer, or ice cold weather in winter. The nickname for the region is "Bavarian Siberia" and is hot during the summer and bitter cold during the winter. Those left standing after this first ordeal were sorted into various groups and sent to the barracks. The rest were shot.

Parade Ground

Each day was a misery. Each prisoner was deprived of his or her humanity and referred to only by number. An elaborate system of colored patches sewed on the jackets of the prisoners identified their origin and status: Jew, criminal, homosexual, hard labor, light labor etc. Over time that inhumanity took its toll. One survivor commented that the most heinous abuse came from the prisoners themselves. "Capo" were prisoners who were given charge over other prisoners. One "Capo" bragged about killing 10 prisoners a day. Beatings and degradation were so common as to become unnoticed.

Early in the camp's history, the prisoners were used at the quarry near Flössenberg to produce high quality stone to support Hitler's ambitious building projects. The work was deadly. Each day prisoners were lined up for roll call before first light. For hours they were counted, and then force marched a few kilometers to the quarry where they worked under the worst conditions with primitive tools to hew out granite blocks. At the end of the day they marched back to camp and stood on the parade ground for hours, again to be counted. Many did not survive. Later the prisoners largely worked in an armament factory producing airplane parts.

Guards murdered thousands of prisoners, often for no reason. The bodies were cremated in the local crematory, but later, a crematory was built on the site.

Guard Tower and Tunnel

A tunnel was built from the upper level to the crematory to make the transport of bodies more efficient.

The Crematory Oven

Bodies were stacked up like cordwood and shoved into the oven several at a time on a metal tray. Long hooks were used to adjust the bodies to burn more efficiently. Toward the end of the war, the crematory could not keep up with the pace of the killings and the bodies were stacked in the yard, doused with fuel, and burned in the open.

A pile of ashed remains as a memorial to the 30,000 known killed at Flössenberg.

The memorial pyramid of ashes

Like many important prisoners, Deitrich Bonhöffer was moved ahead of the advancing front away from the allied forces. He ended up in Flössenberg where he was interred in the barackes reserved for political prisoners of importance and special criminals. The outline of the barracks was excavated and can bee seen in the picture below. The window in the remaining wall of the barracks looks over the memorial garden


Bonhoeffer likely stayed in a cell similar to this one. A heavy wooden door leads to a small concrete room.


Bonhöffer was hanged in this courtyard only two weeks before the camp was liberated. I sat here for along time. I don't have many heroes in my life, but Bonhöeffer is certainly one of them. It is sad to ponder his death, but even more sad to be embraced by a place of such cruelty, despair, inhumanity and hopelessness. If we need any reason to cling to Christ and work for justice, this is it. We need these monuments to human horror to remind us just how thin our veneer of civilization can be. We must remember. We also must remember the courage, tenacity, and faith of people like Bonhöeffer who, in midst of suffering, proclaimed Christ.

There is much more here at Flössenberg and I encourage you to come here some day. In 2007 the main intake building was converted into a powerful permanent display of life in the camp, its history, and stories of those who lived and died there.