| Original caption: “At the German concentration camp at Wobbelin, many inmates were found by the United States Ninth Army in pitiful condition. Here one of them breaks out in tears when he finds he is not leaving with the first group to the hospital.” The Wöbbelin camp, near the city of Ludwigslust, was a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. The Schutzstaffel (SS) had established Wöbbelin in early February 1945 to house concentration camp prisoners whom the SS had evacuated from other camps to prevent their liberation by the Allies. At its height, Wöbbelin held some 5,000 inmates, many of whom were suffering from starvation and disease. In September 1944, construction began on a small camp initially known as “Reiherhorst” that was originally intended for American Prisoners of War. The 1st large transport of prisoners arrived on February 12, 1945. The men were used to build a much larger camp called the Wöbbelin concentration camp. According to a report by Doctor Alfred Trzebinski (August 29, 1902 – October 8, 1946), the SS Garrison Physician at Neuengamme concentration camp, there were 648 prisoners in the Wöbbelin satellite camp at the end of March 1945. In mid-April, numerous transports carrying over 4,000 prisoners arrived at Wöbbelin from various satellites of the Neuengamme and Ravensbrück Konzentrationslagers (“Concentration Camps”). On May 2, 1945, the 8th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne Division encountered Wöbbelin, about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from Ludwigslust. Living conditions in the camp when the Americans arrived were deplorable. There was little food or water, and some prisoners had resorted to cannibalism. When the units arrived there, they found about 1,000 inmates dead in the camp. In the aftermath, the United States Army ordered the townspeople in Ludwigslust to visit the camp and bury the dead. The transfer of Wobbelin’s former prisoners to hospital for medical care saw the sick and starved carrying those that couldn’t walk on their backs to waiting trucks. The local residents later were made to exhume the bodies from the mass graves at the camp and provide decent, respectable interment for ell dead prisoners. 200 were buried in the public square of Ludwigslust on May 7, 1945, and an equal number were buried in the gordon of the highest Nazi official of Hagenow. 80 more were laid to rest in the town of Schwerin. Attending the ceremony that the 82nd Airborne Division conducted were citizens of Ludwigslust, captured German officers, and several 100 members of the airborne division. The United States Army chaplain at the service delivered a eulogy stating that: “The crimes here committed in the name of the German people and by their acquiescence were minor compared to those to be found in concentration camps elsewhere in Germany. Here there were no gas chambers, no crematoria; these men of Holland, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France were simply allowed to starve to death. Within four miles of your comfortable homes 4,000 men were forced to live like animals, deprived even of the food you would give to your dogs. In three weeks 1,000 of these men were starved to death; 800 of them were buried in pits in the nearby woods. These two hundred who lie before us in these graves were found piled four and five feet high in one building and lying with the sick and dying in other buildings.” In accordance with a policy mandated by General Dwight D. Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969), the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, the United States Army in Ludwigslust ordered “all atrocity victims to be buried in a public place,” with crosses placed at the graves of Christians and Stars of David on the Jewish graves, along with a stone monument to memorialize the dead. In May 1945, Manfred Steinfeld (April 29, 1924 – June 30, 2019), a German-born Jew sent to the United States in 1938 on a kindertransport by his mother, entered the Wobblin labor camp as a liberator with the 82nd Airborne in May 1945. “I was emotionally distraught because there was always the possibility of seeing my mother and sister among the dead or half-dead…When we found the bodies in the camp, we decided to bury them in the nearby town square. I made the funeral arrangements and the American chaplain gave the eulogies.” The Germans in the town “swore they had no knowledge of the atrocities…even though they lived only three miles away.” His mother and sister perished in Stutthof concentration camp in 1945. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0547.jpg |
| Image Size | 644.91 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2924 x 2342 |
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| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | May 4, 1945 |
| Location | Konzentrationslager Wöbbelin |
| City | Ludwigslust |
| State or Province | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern |
| Country | Germany |
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| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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