Qualla: Husum-Schwesing concentration camp

Husum-Schwesing concentration camp: Introduction

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:26:53 GMT

Photo credit Christian Alexander Tietgen, CC BY 4.0. Twice a day that autumn, the people of Husum watched. In the morning a column of men was driven up the street on the way out to the marsh, and in the evening the same column came back, smaller and slower. There was no attempt to hide any of it. Townspeople had been ordered out to Schwesing in September 1944 to string the double barbed-wire fence themselves and raise the watchtowers at the four corners, and when prisoners died - and they died most days - Husum residents were made to carry the bodies to the cemetery on their own carts. The camp lasted ninety-five days. In that time roughly 2,500 men from fourteen countries passed through it, and at least 297 of them never left.

Image: Christian Alexander Tietgen | CC BY 4.0

Husum-Schwesing concentration camp: A Ditch That Was Already Pointless

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:26:53 GMT

Photo credit A.Savin, CC BY-SA 3.0. The reason they were brought here was the Friesenwall - a hurried belt of anti-tank ditches and field positions meant to stop an Allied landing on Germany's North Sea coast. The prisoners dug it by hand. With shovels and spades they cut a trench four to five metres wide and three...

Image: A.Savin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Husum-Schwesing concentration camp: The Men in the Barracks

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:26:53 GMT

Photo credit Genet (Diskussion), CC BY-SA 3.0 de. They arrived in Reichsbahn cattle wagons. About 1,500 prisoners came from Neuengamme on 25 September 1944, and another thousand followed on 20 October. Most were Dutch, French, Danish and Polish - men taken in occupied countries and shipped north - along with Soviet and German pr...

Image: Genet (Diskussion) | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Husum-Schwesing concentration camp: Hans Hermann Griem

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:26:53 GMT

Photo credit Niels Elgaard Larsen - (WT-en) Elgaard at English Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. The camp was run from September 1944 by SS-Untersturmführer Hans Hermann Griem, who from November was also in charge of the subcamp at Ladelund. He withheld food as a matter of routine, took pleasure in torture, shot prisoners himself, and was frequently drunk. When Husum-Schwesi...

Image: Niels Elgaard Larsen - (WT-en) Elgaard at English Wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Husum-Schwesing concentration camp: Names That Rust

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:26:53 GMT

Photo credit --Xocolatl 17:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC), Public domain. When the war ended, most of the dead were repatriated, and for a while the site housed refugees. The reckoning came slowly and locally. In 1983 a working group published the camp's history, and on 30 January that year around a thousand people gathered in Husum to hear former pris...

Image: --Xocolatl 17:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC) | Public domain