The Stutthof concentration camp, established in 1939 near Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), was a site of Nazi oppression and forced labor, holding over 100,000 prisoners, including Poles, Jews, and Soviet POWs, with approximately 85,000 deaths between 1940 and 1945. As part of ethnic cleansing efforts targeting Polish elites, intellectuals, religious leaders, and politicians, the camp’s creation mirrored pre-war Nazi planning for detention sites. Postwar trials held former personnel accountable for war crimes, leading to convictions and executions in 1946. This analysis, based on historical records from the Stutthof Memorial Museum and trial documents, provides an objective account of the camp’s establishment, operations, and legal proceedings, for educational purposes to honor the victims and promote understanding of Holocaust responsibility.

Establishment and Initial Purpose
Stutthof was founded in a wooded area west of the village of Stutthof, 22 miles east of Danzig, as part of the Nazi ethnic cleansing program aimed at eliminating Polish leadership and intellectuals. Even before the war, German authorities compiled arrest lists and scouted camp locations. The original “old camp,” built by prisoners in 1940, consisted of eight barracks surrounded by barbed-wire fences.

Initially a labor camp for Poles, Stutthof expanded after the invasion of Poland in 1939. Pre-war planning included addressing perceived threats and aligning with broader SS initiatives to suppress opposition. By 1942, it held political prisoners, clergy, and intellectuals, in conditions marked by overcrowding and forced labor in nearby factories.

Expansion and Atrocities

Stutthof became a full concentration camp in January 1942, under SS supervision. Beginning in 1942, German guards (Aufseherinnen) arrived, numbering 295 women by the end of the war. Ukrainian auxiliaries supplemented the staff after 1943. The camp included subcamps such as Bromberg-Ost in Bydgoszcz, established in 1944 for female prisoners.

Conditions deteriorated: typhus epidemics in 1942 and 1944 killed thousands, and the weak were gassed in a chamber added in 1943 or sent to euthanasia centers. Executions began on January 11, 1940, with 89 Polish activists shot, followed by phenol injections and mobile gas vans. From June 1944, Zyklon B gassings targeted Jewish women and children, killing 4,000 before evacuation.

The camp processed 110,000 prisoners, with 85,000 deaths from disease, starvation, and execution. It supported the “Final Solution,” which involved deporting Jews from the ghettos to extermination camps.

The Liberation and Stutthof Trials

Stutthof was evacuated in January 1945, with 40,000 prisoners on death marches; the Red Army liberated it on March 9, 1945. Survivors’ testimony fueled the prosecutions.

The Stutthof Trials, conducted by a Soviet-Polish tribunal in Gdańsk from April 25 to May 31, 1946, indicted 13 staff members: the commandant, guards, and kapos. All were convicted of crimes against humanity. Twelve were sentenced to death, including guard commander Johann Pauls; others received prison sentences. The executions took place on July 4, 1946, in Biskupia Górka, Gdańsk, with former prisoners serving as executioners for some, such as Jenny-Wanda Barkmann.

Subsequent trials from 1946 to 1953 convicted additional personnel, including guard Wanda Klaff (hanged on July 4, 1946) and others, of abuses in the subcamps.

Legacy and Reflection
The history of Stutthof underscores the Nazi expansion into Eastern Europe, part of the Lebensraum ideology that displaced Slavs, Jews, and Roma. The trials, among the 12 postwar proceedings, held mid-level perpetrators accountable, complementing Nuremberg.

Today, the Stutthof Memorial Museum preserves artifacts and testimonies and educates about the impact of the Holocaust in Poland, where 6 million people died. The executions symbolized justice, albeit incomplete, as some, like Commandant Max Pauly, were tried elsewhere.

The ethnic cleansing facility at Stutthof evolved into a place of death for 85,000 people, and the convictions of its staff were a step toward accountability. The 1946 executions, based on evidence from survivors, affirmed the rule of law in the aftermath of the atrocity. For history buffs, Stutthof’s story urges us to remember the victims and learn lessons about how to prevent genocide, drawing on sources like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to encourage empathy and vigilance.