Bodelschwingh is just a 7 minute drive south of Mengede, on the North West outskirts of Dortmund Germany. My father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was leading C-Company in the 1st Platoon of the 75th Infantry Division. Their goal was to secure and cut off the western approaches to the city of Dortmund.
Dortmund has been bombed to the point of being a pile of rubble, but it became clear that the Germans were determined to hold on to this industrial stronghold with absolute radical determination. Dortmund was considered the Pittsburgh of Germany. Dortmund had been early supporters of the Nazi party. The large industries profited from forced labor and producing the fuel and armaments that fed the German war machine.
In 1933 the Jewish population in Dortmund was about 4,000. In 1935 local citizens boycotted Jewish businesses. By August 1938, the Jewish population dropped to 2,600. In October 1938, the government dismantled the synagogue. In November 1938, riots collectively known as Kristallnacht took place, as mobs destroyed Jewish businesses and homes in Dortmund’s city center. Within days, 600 Jews were arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen, near Frankfurt Germany, where 17 died and the survivors paid fines before the Nazi’s released them.
By May 1939, only 1.444 Jews remained in Dortmund. Some escaped Germany shortly after the start of WWII, leaving only 1,222 Jewish Dortmund residents by June 1940. They were not allowed to use public facilities such as bomb shelters or use radios or televisions. Eventually the Jews were confined to “Jewish Houses”. This made it easy for the Nazis when they began the Final Solution.
Between 1940 and 1945 Dortmund was a rally point for the deportation of Jews to death and forced labor camps. The Nazis gathered eight separate groups of 500 or more Jews in Dortmund and sent then to the camps. The larges group between 700 and 800 were removed in April 1942. They were sent to Belzec death camp in Poland where they all were killed.
Zeche Westhausen was a coal mine in Dortmund, Germany. During WWII it was active and utilized forced labor, particularly from the Soviet Union. Germans considered Soviets to be subhuman, and they would literally starve them and work them to death. German miners between the ages of 18 to 35 were drafted into the army and thus slave laborers took their places in the mines. By 1944, over 40% of the Ruhr mining workforce consisted of forced laborers, totaling around 163,000 people.