Behind the Hannover Commonwealth War Cemetery (CWGC), off Am Englischen Friedhof street.

A memorial and information sign remembering the Hannover-Ahlem (A-12) Concentration Camp which was a sub campp to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp.  This sub camp was liberated by the 84th "Railsplitters" Infantry Division in April 1945.

HANNOVER-AHLEM (A 12) Information:

At the end of November 1944, an advance commando consisting of around 100 concentration camp prisoners from the Hannover-Stöcken satellite camp reached Ahlem, where they were forced to set up huts on property belonging to Continental Gummi-Werke AG and build washrooms and housing for the SS. On 30 November 1944, most of the prisoners from the Stöcken satellite camp were transferred to Ahlem, bringing the total number of prisoners to about 840 men.

The prisoners, most of whom were Jewish, were used to construct an underground tunnel to house the operations of the Continental Gummi-Werke rubber factory and the Maschinenfabrik Niedersachsen Hannover. The project bore the cover name "A 12". This difficult work and the terrible conditions underground led to a high death rate. In January 1945, a transport consisting mostly of Soviet prisoners from Neuengamme main camp reached the Ahlem satellite camp. These prisoners were meant to replace prisoners who had died or become unable to work.

Preparations for the evacuation of the camp began in Hannover-Ahlem as early as April 5, 1945. A day later, the prisoners who were still able to walk left the concentration camp and set off in the direction of Bergen-Belsen. It is not known how many prisoners were murdered by SS men along the way. Around 200 sick prisoners were liberated by American soldiers in Ahlem on 10 April 1945.

SS-Hauptscharführer Otto Tull Harder, a well-known former Hamburg football player, was commander of the Ahlem satellite camp. Many survivors also remember the feared SS-Rottenführer Wilhelm Damann.

Period

30 November 1944 to 10 April 1945

Number of Prisoners

840 Male Prisoners

Kind of Work

Construction of an underground tunnel

Labor on Behalf of

Continental Gummi-Werke AG, Maschinenfabrik Niedersachsen

Source: https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/en/history/satellite-camps/satellite-camps/hannover-ahlem-a-12/

Source of photos: Traces of War 

The information sign at the memorial includes the following German text (translated to English):

The Ahlem concentration camp, an external extension of the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, was located 150 meters next to the monument.

In November 1944, approximately 1000 male inmates, mostly Jews from Poland were brought to Ahlem to work at the underground asphalt tunnels for the war industry. After that, in the succeeding months another 500 men of different nationalities came to the camp.

Some 750 prisoners died, they starved, frozen, or they succumbed to infection, the hard work, by abuse, or were murdered.

In the beginning, the dead were cremated in the crematorium at the cemetery Seelhorster. Later, the corpses were buried in mass graves.

With the allied troops in sight, the SS braked down the camp on April 6th 1945 and sent more than 600 prisoners on a death march to the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.

More than 200 sick and completely exhausted prisoners remained in the camp. Of these, 16 died in four consecutive days. The survivors were liberated on April 10th 1945 by American troops. 51 of them died after the liberation of the impact of imprisonment in a concentration camp.