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Camp Ashcan

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WWII Allied prisoner-of-war camp in Luxembourg
The "class of 45": Prisoners of Ashcan posing for a group photo in August 1945. In the center of the bottom row, Hermann Göring.

Central Continental Prisoner of War Enclosure No. 32, code-named Ashcan, was an Allied prisoner-of-war camp in the Palace Hotel of Mondorf-les-Bains, Luxembourg during World War II. Operating from May to August 1945, it served as a processing station and interrogation center for the 86 most prominent surviving Nazi leaders prior to their trial in Nuremberg, including Hermann Göring and Karl Dönitz.

A British counterpart of Ashcan, Camp Dustbin in Castle Kransberg near Frankfurt am Main, housed prisoners of a more technical inclination including Albert Speer and Wernher von Braun.

History

The Palace Hotel before the war.

The camp was established by order of Allied Command.[1] It was commanded by U.S. Army Col. Burton C. Andrus, and staffed by men of the U.S. 391st Anti-Aircraft Battalion,[2] Allied intelligence services and 42 German prisoners of war selected for their skills, including a barber, dentist, doctor and even a hotel manager.[3]

The place selected for the camp was the Palace Hotel, a four-story luxury hotel dominating the small spa town, which had earlier in 1945 been used as a billet for U.S. troops.[1] The hotel was transformed into a high-security area with a 15-foot (4.6 m) high electrified barbed wire fence, guard towers with machine guns and klieg lights.[4] Conditions in the prison were spartan. The hotel furniture was replaced by Army cots and collapsible tables.[3] To prevent suicide attempts, all inmates had their razor blades, neckties, suspenders and other personal effects confiscated.[5]

Security was so tight that even the MPs guarding the perimeter knew not what went on inside; they quipped that getting in required "a pass signed by God, and then somebody has to verify the signature".[2] Nonetheless, by mid-summer reports of the prisoners being kept in a "luxury hotel" began to surface. A wildly incorrect Radio Moscow broadcast told of the prisoners being served haute cuisine on silver platters, and being chauffeured around in luxury automobiles. To dispel such fabrications, Andrus declared an open house for the press on July 16 and on subsequent dates, where they could see for themselves the ordinariness of the prison conditions and that no one was being pampered.[6]

On 10 August 1945, the prisoners were transferred to Nuremberg to stand trial, and the camp was disbanded shortly afterwards. The building continued to serve as a hotel until 1988, when it was demolished to make way for a more modern spa.

Prisoners

Prisoners at Ashcan included most of the defendants in the Nuremberg Trials along with many other senior Nazi Party, government and military officials.

Nuremberg trials defendants

The following were brought to trial by the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trials of November 1945 to October 1946.

Subsequent Nuremberg trials defendants

The following were brought to trial in the subsequent Nuremberg trials between December 1946 and October 1948.

Others

Other prisoners included:

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Dolibois, 86.
  2. ^ a b Dolibois, 85.
  3. ^ a b Dolibois, 87.
  4. ^ Dolibois, 84.
  5. ^ Ullrich, Volker (2021). Eight Days In May - The Final Collapse of the Third Reich. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation. ISBN 1631498274.
  6. ^ El-Hai 2013, p. 42.

References

49°30′18″N 6°16′48″E / 49.5050°N 6.2800°E / 49.5050; 6.2800

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