On 4 September 1933, seven months after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany, parts of Fuhlsbüttel prison were converted into a concentration camp.[3] It was initially placed under the command of the SA. Most of the inmates were Communists, Social Democrats and other political opponents of Nazism, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexual men and others whom the regime wanted to lock up. In 1936, the Gestapo began running the camp, then called Polizeigefängnis Fuhlsbüttel (police prison). Over 700 people were interned in the camp following Kristallnacht in 1938. Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp was referred to in common parlance as KolaFu (abbreviated from Konzentrationslager Fuhlsbüttel) and became a synonym for oppression and death through hard labor. Fuhlsbüttel was often an initial point of incarceration for prisoners who were sent on to other camps such as Buchenwald, Esterwegen, Neuengamme, Ravensbrück or Sachsenhausen. The camp was liberated on 3 May 1945, by which time over 250 people had been murdered there.
There is a memorial for the camp nearby.
A famous political prisoner held at the camp was First World War veteran – turned pacifist – Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke. Women were also held at the camp, including Mary Pünjer, who was accused of lesbianism.[4]
Geography
In 2006 according to the statistical office of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, the quarter Fuhlsbüttel has a total area of 6.6 square kilometres (3 sq mi).
As of 2006, 11,890 people were living in the Fuhlsbüttel quarter. The population density was 1,806/km2 (4,678/sq mi). 14.6% were children under the age of 18, and 20.5% were 65 years of age or older. 9.7% were immigrants. 508 people were registered as unemployed.[7] In 1999 there were 6,768 households and 49.7% of all households were made up of individuals.[8]
According to the Department of Motor Vehicles (Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt), 5,004 private vehicles were registered in the Fuhlsbüttel quarter (425 vehicles/1,000 people).[9]
There were two elementary schools and one secondary school in the Fuhlsbüttel quarter and 26 physicians in private practice and five pharmacies.[9]
Fuhlsbüttel is served by the Hamburg U-Bahn (underground) line U1, with two stations, Fuhlsbüttel and Fuhlsbüttel Nord (formerly called Flughafenstraße).