Columbia concentration camp (also known as Columbia-Haus) was a Nazi concentration camp situated in the Tempelhof

Tempelhof

Tempelhof is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of the former Tempelhof Airport, one of the earliest commercial airports in the world. It is now deserted and shows as a blank spot on maps of Berlin. Attempts are being made to save the still-existing...

 area of Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. It was one of the first such institutions established by the regime.

Development

Originally called Strafgefängnis Tempelhofer Feld the building, which contained 134 cells, 10 interrogation rooms and a guardroom, had been built as a military police station but fell empty in 1929. However as soon as the Nazi Party came to power the building, which by then was known as Columbia-Haus, was made into a prison, with 400 inmates held by September 1933.

The prison, initially staffed by both Schutzstaffel

Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

 and Sturmabteilung

Sturmabteilung

The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...

 members, was largely unregulated until 1934 when it was placed under the command of Walter Gerlach

Walter Gerlach

Walter Gerlach was a German physicist who co-discovered spin quantization in a magnetic field, the Stern-Gerlach effect.-Education:Gerlach was born in Biebrich, Hessen-Nassau....

 and his adjutant Arthur Liebehenschel

Arthur Liebehenschel

Arthur Liebehenschel was a commandant at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps during World War II. He was convicted of war crimes after the war and executed.-Biography:...

. Ran as a prison by the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

, it was notorious in the city for the torture meted out to its detainees, most of whom were Communists

Communist Party of Germany

The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...

, Social Democrats

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

 or Jews. Alongside these however the rightist Max Naumann

Max Naumann

Max Naumann was the founder of Verband nationaldeutscher Juden , which called for the elimination of Jewish ethnic identity through Jewish assimilation...

 also spent time as an inmate.

From 27 December 1934 the prison was administrated by the Concentration Camps Inspectorate

Concentration Camps Inspectorate

The Concentration Camps Inspectorate was the central SS administrative and managerial authority for the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Created by Theodor Eicke, it was originally known as the "General Inspection of the Enhanced SS-Totenkopfstandarten, after Eicke's position in the SS...

. On 8 January 1935 Reinhard Heydrich

Reinhard Heydrich

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...

 announced that Konzentrationslager Columbia was to be adopted as the official name in preference to Columbia-Haus.

Personnel

Many leading perpetrators of the Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

 saw service in Columbia early in their careers. Notable amongst these was Karl Otto Koch

Karl Otto Koch

Karl-Otto Koch , a Standartenführer in the German Schutzstaffel , was the first commandant of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, and later also served as a commander at the Majdanek concentration camp.-Early life:Koch was born in Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse on...

, who was appointed commandant in 1935. At lower levels camp guards included Richard Baer

Richard Baer

Richard Baer was a German Nazi official with the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer and commander of the Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to February 1945. He was a member of N.S.D.A.P...

, Max Kögel

Max Kögel

Otto Max Koegel was a Nazi officer who served as a commander at Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück, Majdanek and Flossenbürg concentration camps.-Early life:...

 and Theodor Dannecker

Theodor Dannecker

Theodor Dannecker was an SS Hauptsturmführer and one of Adolf Eichmann's associates....

.

Closure and legacy

The camp was closed in 1936 to make way for the expansion of Berlin Tempelhof Airport. After its August closure the remaining prisoners were moved to the new facility established at Sachsenhausen

Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...

.

A motion was passed by Tempelhof district city council to lay a plaque on the site of the camp.