Swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans: Defaced concentration camp memorial in Bavaria

Created: 08/25/2022, 07:35

By: Dirk Walter

The strangers drew swastikas on the plaques of the concentration camp memorial with permanent markers.

©Rudolf Mayer

3,000 prisoners died in the former concentration camp subcamp in the Mühldorf forest area.

The memorial commemorating her was daubed by unknown persons.

Mühldorf – Unknown persons have smeared the concentration camp memorial “Mühldorfer Hart” in Bavaria.

While working in the nearby forest, an employee of the Bavarian State Forests noticed that swastikas and mostly anti-Semitic slogans had been attached to the memorial stones and plaques with black permanent markers.

He informed the police.

Bavaria: Memorial commemorates concentration camp prisoners

The memorial commemorates the former concentration camp subcamp in the Mühldorf forest area "Am Hart".

Several thousand concentration camp prisoners were forced to build an armament bunker from 1944, they lived in earthen huts in the forest.

A large concrete arch from the armament bunker is still preserved today, it should be preserved as a monument.

Signs on site warn against entering the area, and explosives are still being searched for.

Not far from the bunker were the forest camps, of which large hollows in the ground still bear witness.

The historian Peter Müller assumes that around 3,000 of the 8,300 prisoners died by the end of the war.

They were buried in mass graves, and the bodies were later exhumed.

The memorial, which was only inaugurated a few years ago, commemorates the camps.

The memorial is very remote and can only be reached on foot.

Although the bunker is repeatedly set on fire, there are no video cameras at the memorial site, reports Stefan Sonntag from the Oberbayern Süd police headquarters in Rosenheim.

This now complicates the investigation.

Luck: "If we don't face up to our history, it will catch up with us at some point"

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Defaced memorial: Police suspect several perpetrators

What is certain, however, is that the graffiti must have been applied on Monday (August 22) between 9 a.m. and 3.25 p.m.

Due to different typefaces, the police assume at least two perpetrators.

There are also Hitler daubs on the former bunker.

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Although the state security department of the Traunstein Criminal Police Office is investigating, the police do not rule out an apolitical background.

The police spokesman says that "destructive young people" could also be considered as perpetrators.

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