Gudendorf Memorial

In Gudendorf there was a prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. The imposing memorial is intended to commemorate this. It creates goosebumps.
de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedenkst%C3%A4tte_Gudendorf

In 1939, the Luftwaffe planned an airfield near Gudendorf and cleared a wide strip of forest. However, the project was discontinued and the barracks that had already been built were converted into a prison camp. From 1941, mainly Soviet prisoners of war were billeted here. Many died in detention from disease or malnutrition. Those who died in the camp were buried in mass graves in the dunes. The location of the graves is unknown to this day. The identity of the prisoners here is also largely unclear. The honorary cemetery commemorates the Soviet prisoners.

The Gudendorf memorial (Dithmarschen district, Schleswig-Holstein) is intended to commemorate Soviet prisoners of war and forced laborers who died in a camp here during World War II. The memorial lies within the Klev landscape protection area from Windbergen to St. Michaelisdonn.
Soviet prisoners of war arrived in Schleswig-Holstein in a deplorable condition, being inadequately fed. Shortly after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, a prison camp for Soviet prisoners of war was established in Gudendorf. Barracks in which the Soviet prisoners of war were housed stood on an area of around one hectare on what is now Schulstrasse. The camp belonged to the STALAG (main camp) XA Schleswig. In addition, barracks were erected on the road to St. Michaelisdonn near Hindorf to serve as an "epidemic precinct". Part of the site also served as a military training camp.In April 1944, the Stalag X Az "extended infirmary" for sick Soviet prisoners of war who were unable to work and had been in Kaltenkirchen-Heidkaten since 1941 was relocated to Gudendorf in the area of what is now Schulstraße.Little is known about the exact conditions under which the prisoners had to live and work. Gerhard Hoch had characterized the previous Heidkaten camp as a death camp[1]. According to recent research, this can no longer be maintained[2]. According to estimates from the 1950s, 3,000 Soviet prisoners of war died in Gudendorf in 1944 and 1945.[3] The historian Martin Gietzelt, on the other hand, was able to identify 46 deceased after evaluating the personnel cards; he expects "less than a hundred dead".
After the end of the war, the site served as a detention center for young people from the eastern German territories, as a reserve hospital and as a civilian facility for the Süderdithmarschen district hospital before the first memorial was set up in 1946.
Source: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedenkst%C3%A4tte_Gudendorf