The Subsequent Use of the Grounds

In the evening of 2 May 1945, British troops reached Neuengamme concentration camp and found it to be mostly abandoned. Both the buildings and the infrastructure still seemed suitable for mass accommodation, and so former slave labourers from the Soviet Union who had been deported to the Hamburg area were housed and cared for there only weeks after the camp’s liberation. At the same time, other parts of the camp were used to hold German POWs, members of the Waffen SS as well as civilian detainees. In 1948, the City of Hamburg took over the British internment camp and used it as a prison. After the internment camp was disbanded in 1948, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg took over the grounds and facilities of the former concentration campand set up the “Neuengamme Prison for Men” on the site of the former prisoners’ barracks (the Häftlingslager). In 1950, a new prison building was erected on the site. After decades of campaigning, this correctional facility was finally moved to Billwerder in June 2003. Another prison building was erected on the site of the former clay pits at the end of the 1960s. It was in use from 1970 to 2006, first as a juvenile detention centre and later as a regular penal facility.