Sachsenhausen

Russian built fake Nazi 'gas chamber' at Sachsenhausen  Although the War and Nazism were over, Schirmer and a few fellow-prisoners were forced to construct a gas chamber and execution room, to show the world what the Nazis had done. After completion, at about the end of October 1945, Dipl.-Ing. Dörbeck was brought before the political officer alone and received precise instructions about the explanations he was to give to Soviet groups of visitors. He had to say the following: This installation, which was built by the Nazis, served to kill [Vernichtung] Jews and Soviet officer prisoners. Each day some 200 people were gassed and about twenty-five were shot. This went on from 1943 till 1945 (April).
    From about December 1945 until the end of 1947 an average of two tours a week, each consisting of some thirty to forty Soviet men, mostly soldiers and people from the GPU, and women, were escorted by Dörbeck round the installation. There were often officers amongst them who quite openly expressed doubts about the age of the installation because they saw that the concrete was new, that there were no bullet holes from the executions in the concrete wall and that the blood stains (red paint) were very meagre and unconvincing......the number of victims of the NKVD camp Sachsenhausen is known quite precisely. Schirmer reckons they amounted to about 24,600 ('give or take a hundred').

Prisoners of Sachsenhausen, 19 December 1938