History of the military training area with M.B. 89
The history of the military training area and the Bergen-Hohne-Camp is inextricably linked with that of the Prisoner of War camps in the Lüneburg Heath and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The military training area was established in 1935 as part of the Nazi regime's rearmament and war policy. It was here that the "Wehrmacht" (German armed forces) practised the war of aggression, to which millions of people fell victim from 1939 onwards, including tens of thousands of Prisoners of War who were housed in camps on the training ground and more than 52,000 prisoners of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The traces of the crimes around today's Lower Saxony barracks cannot be overlooked. The Bergen-Belsen memorial site contains the mass graves that were laid out in April and May 1945 with tens of thousands of dead. The dead of the Bergen-Belsen POW camp were buried in the nearby Prisoner of War cemetery in Hörsten. With the Small Cemetery and the so-called Tent Theatre Cemetery, there are two cemeteries associated with the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and DP camp within the barracks grounds. Many buildings in the Lower Saxony barracks, which was used as a Displaced Persons Camp from 1945 to 1950, also bear witness to the new beginning of Jewish life after 1945.
Exhibition "Armament, war and crime. The Wehrmacht and the Bergen-Hohne-Camp"
The exhibition was developed by the Bergen-Belsen Memorial Centre in cooperation with Leibniz Universität Hannover and is on display in the M.B. 89 learning centre in the Lower Saxony barracks.
The exhibition, which opened in 2019, is dedicated to the history of the historical sites as well as the history of the "Wehrmacht" (German armed forces) and their crimes. The building, which was erected in the 1930s, is largely original and was used as accommodation for prisoners of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp shortly before liberation. After liberation, Polish and Jewish Displaced Persons lived there.
The exhibition makes it clear that war and crimes were planned from the very beginning of the Nazi regime. It vividly demonstrates that the "Wehrmacht" (German armed forces) was a mainstay of the Nazi dictatorship. It also addresses the questions of what scope for action soldiers had and how German society and the Bundeswehr dealt with the difficult legacy of the "Wehrmacht" (German armed forces) after 1945.