Chapter: About the place / Local past / Martin Wieber
Barch B 162 / IV 419 AR 1436/68
SS-man Martin Wieber, born on 13.9.1908 in Militsch / Yugoslavia, was called up on 9.10.1943 to SS-Totenkopf-Division in Vienna. In October 1943, he was transferred to Oranienburg and a week later he was transferred for a four-week short training to Buchenwald concentration camp. Subsequently, he was employed until November 1944 in the concentration camp Natzweiler and then for 3-4 weeks in the concentration camp Neckarelz. From December 1944 to March 1945 he was a security guard in the Bensheim-Auerbach concentration camp, which was occupied by about 60 inmates:
"About 20 prisoners … were working on lathes at a company that was housed in a tunnel in Hochstädten. Around 10 inmates were working on the outside of the tunnel, constructing an air shaft. About 6 inmates worked in a barrack next to the camp. These were busy with drawing work. The rest was used in the forest for logging and building of barracks. Camp leader was Ewald Franzen, a sergeant of the SS… who supposedly had died in the attack on the Dachau concentration camp.
The prisoners in Hochstädten were housed in the same barrack as the guards. The subcamp (Hochstädten) consisted of only one barrack, with all the inmates housed in a large room, each with his own bed of straw and rugs, with two beds placed one above the other. In this room was also a large table, where the inmates had eaten during the camp stay. The inmates as well as the guards got their food from a communal kitchen in Hochstädten... At the dissolution of the camp in March 1945, the prisoners were transported to Dachau. Back then we walked with the prisoners from Hochstädten to Schwäbisch Hall. From there they were loaded into a freight train together with the prisoners from the Neckarelz concentration camp.
On the way to Dachau was several times air raid alarm. At those times the prisoners were allowed to leave the train. Arriving in Dachau it was said that 140 inmates would be missing from the transport. ... I have not heard about that any inmates were killed on transport. I think the inmates who had been missing on arrival in Dachau had fled."
At the end, Martin Wieber was an SS man in the Dachau concentration camp and he was taken prisoner by the United States on 8.5.1945.
