Memorial plaque for Italian military internees at the sports field on Max-Brauer-Allee

Since 2025, a plaque at the sports field on Max-Brauer-Allee in Hamburg-Altona commemorates 152 Italian military internees (IMI) who were housed in a camp at the local youth hostel from October 1943 to April 1945. They were mainly employed to clear rubble. This work was contracted out by the city cleaning department to Hamburg construction companies, which in turn employed the forced laborers.

The “military internees” were Italian soldiers who had been captured by the Wehrmacht after the fall of Mussolini and the Allied armistice with the new Italian government in September 1943. Most of them refused to continue fighting alongside Nazi Germany. As a result, they were deported to forced labor, mostly in the Reich territory.

The memorial plaque was financed by the Hamburg-Altona district assembly.