| Original caption: “A German girl is overcome as she walks past the exhumed bodies of some of the 800 slave workers murdered by SS guards near Nammering, Germany, and laid here so that townspeople may view the work of their Nazi leaders.” 1st Lieutenant Robert Schoenfeld (August 27, 1912 – November 16, 2004) of the United States Army’s 430th Military Intelligence Interpreter Team attached to the 5th Infantry Division, reported on the Massacre of Nammering to the Division’s G-2 Intelligence officer in a memorandum dated May 16, 1945: “On the morning of April 19, 1945, a train consisting of fifty-four freight cars pulled into the station of Nammering. It contained about 4,500 men, a hundred in each of the wagons. The last three cars were filled with about a hundred corpses [each]. The first few cars were reserved for the guards and the Transport Commander [SS-Obersturmführer Hans Erich Merbach (May 10, 1910 – January 14, 1949)].” “The transport was on its way from the Concentration Camp Buchenwald to the Concentration Camp in Dachau, but was forced to a detour by the bomb damage done to various railroad stations on its way. As the next larger station, Passau, was also damaged, Nammering was chosen for a ‘rest.’” “There were about a hundred and fifty guards, some in SS uniform, some in the green uniform of the German Police [Kripo or Kriminalpolizei]. Many of the guards spoke German with a heavy Hungarian accent. The boss of the guards and commander of the transport was Merbach, an AA man [Abteilung Schutzhaftlager (“Department of Protective Custody Camps”)], holding the equivalent rank of a First Lieutenant; he was formerly a bank employee in Gotha, Thuringen. Second in rank, and outstanding by his brutality was a short hunchback in a black raincoat.” “The transport stayed in Nammering from April 19-23, 1945. Only a few of the sick, undernourished and brutally beaten men were allowed to leave the cars to fetch water from the houses near the station. People living in that neighborhood tried to give them food, which however, in most cases was taken away by the guards. Following an appeal by the Catholic priest of Eicher, several hundred pounds of potatoes were prepared and given to those who still had the strength to eat. As soon as the train arrived the men were told to unload the cars with the corpses into carts. They were brought to a quarry in the woods, about five hundred yards (450 meters) from the station. The corpses were cremated there, the remaining ashes and bones covered with earth and stones.” “During the 4 days while the train was in Nammering, another 800 men were shot by the guards, partly as ‘punishment’ for having bent down to pluck some grass for food, partly for mere satisfaction of the sadistic desires of the guards. The cremating became too slow a process; in a distance of about 500 yards (450 meters) a big square hole was dug into the ground, into which those who still could work had to throw those who had fallen victim during the day. Seldom did these gravediggers return from their work; they were shot while bent over the grave. In the morning of [April] 23, 17 cars left; the others followed in short intervals. The train went to Kaltenegg end from there to Passau. According to a rumor, many of the men were loaded there onto a barge which was sunk to the bottom. The rest of the transport supposedly went from Passau to Simbach, Pocking and then to Dachau. After our troops found the grave several days ago, 55 men from a neighboring [Prisoner of War Camp] were ordered to unearth the 800 bodies. The population of Nammering was ordered to visit the place. The place in the quarry was only found today. It will be opened. and the remainders of the mass cremation will bo buried. According to the eyewitness testimony of Alois Schmidt (b. 1919), a resident of Nammering who was 26 years old in 1945, the Americans were at 1st welcomed as liberators. They got along very well with the German townspeople during the initial week of occupation and MG administration. All this changed a week later when the Americans were told about the massacre at the railway siding in Nammering and were then shown the mass grave in the ravine below. The men in the village were asked to dig up the dead. Schmidt said, “So that we didn’t damage the bodies, the American soldiers took away our shovels and spades.” The people were forced to walk past the rows of dead and see the horrors. “We had to dig around in the mud with our bare hands until we came across another body, another corpse.” Later, farmers came with oxen and took the corpses to graves in the region. “On all the roads on which the corpses were transported, traces of corpse water could be seen and smelled. It is so difficult to talk about it.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii0553.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.04 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 2920 x 2263 |
| Photographer | Edward Belfer |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | May 17, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Nammering |
| State or Province | Bavaria |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-111-SC-264895 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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