113-555: Gusen was a subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp operated by the SS ( Schutzstaffel ) between the villages of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and Langestein in the Reichsgau Ostmark (currently Perg District , Upper Austria ). Primarily populated by Polish prisoners, there were also large numbers of Spanish Republicans , Soviet citizens, and Italians. Initially, prisoners worked in nearby quarries, producing granite which
226-554: A gas chamber of its own and the so-called Muselmänner , or prisoners who were too sick to work, after being maltreated, under-nourished or exhausted, were then transferred to other concentration camps for extermination (mostly to the Hartheim Euthanasia Centre , which was 40.7 kilometres or 25.3 miles away), or killed by lethal injection and cremated in the local crematorium . The growing number of prisoners made this system too expensive and from 1940, Mauthausen
339-579: A bunk, and conditions were even worse in Block 31, where those suffering from dysentery were thrown on the floor and denied food. In April 1945, Ziereis contemplated murdering the 40,000 prisoners at Gusen by trapping them in the tunnels and detonating them with dynamite. He passed the order on to Seidler and an ammunition depot was set up nearby by 28 April. Two of the five entrances of the Sandkeller tunnels at Gusen I were walled off and explosives placed at
452-482: A day during the 1940–1942 period, to between 1,150 and 1,460 calories (4,800 and 6,100 kJ) a day during the next period. In 1945 the energy content was even lower and did not exceed 600 to 1,000 calories (2,500 to 4,200 kJ) a day – less than a third of the energy needed by an average worker in heavy industry . The reduced rations led to the starvation of thousands of inmates. The rock quarry in Mauthausen
565-430: A factory infrastructure were converted into the third Gusen camp. The increasing number of subcamps could not keep up with the rising number of inmates, which led to overcrowding of the huts in Mauthausen and its subcamps. From late 1940 to 1944, the number of inmates per bed rose from two to four. As production in Mauthausen and its subcamps constantly increased, so too did the number of detainees and subcamps. Initially
678-657: A handful of French prisoners (under the Nacht und Nebel decree) arrived from 1942. In September 1943, the first Italian prisoners arrived at the camp, where they faced a very high mortality rate. Some Allied aircrew shot down nearby were also imprisoned at the camp. Gusen II, established in 1944, had mostly Soviet and Italian prisoners. The SS encouraged animosity between prisoners of different nationalities. There were no significant resistance groups in Gusen. In 1945, some German and Austrian criminal prisoners were freed by volunteering for
791-757: A means of collective responsibility or after escape attempts included beating the prisoners to death by the SS guards and Kapos, starving to death in bunkers, hangings and mass shootings. At times the guards or Kapos would either deliberately throw the prisoners on the 380- volt electric barbed wire fence, or force them outside the boundaries of the camp and then shoot them on the pretence that they were attempting to escape. Another method of extermination were icy showers – some 3,000 inmates died of hypothermia after having been forced to take an icy cold shower and then left outside in cold weather. A large number of inmates were drowned in barrels of water at Gusen II. The Nazis also performed pseudo-scientific experiments on
904-470: A new source of labour as more and more Austrians were drafted into the Wehrmacht . In March 1944, the former SS depot was converted to a new subcamp named Gusen II , which served as an improvised concentration camp until the end of the war. Gusen II contained 12,000 to 17,000 inmates, deprived of even the most basic facilities. In December 1944, Gusen III was opened in nearby Lungitz . Here, parts of
1017-506: A reign of terror began against anti-Nazis, Jews, and Austrians mistaken for Jews. The Gestapo established an office in Vienna two days later. Hundreds were arrested and deported to Dachau concentration camp . The site of Mauthausen concentration camp was chosen in May 1938 by an SS delegation including Theodor Eicke and Oswald Pohl . Along with Flossenbürg concentration camp , its purpose
1130-466: A separate Prisoner of War Labour Camp (German: Kriegsgefangenenarbeitslager ). This camp had many prisoners of war , mostly Red Army officers. By 1942 the production capacity of Mauthausen and the Gusen camps had reached its peak. The Gusen site was expanded to include the central depot of the SS, where various goods seized from occupied territories were sorted and then dispatched to Germany. Local quarries and businesses were in constant need of
1243-476: A separate room inside most barracks. On Himmler's order of June 1941, a brothel was opened in the Mauthausen and Gusen I camps in 1942. The Kapos formed the main part of the so-called Prominents (German: Prominenz ), or prisoners who were given a much better treatment than the average inmate. "If there is a God, he will have to beg my forgiveness." —Unknown victim of the Holocaust, carved into
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#17327767192001356-467: A situation of complete chaos, as prisoners killed each other with weapons abandoned by the fleeing SS. Many of the sickest prisoners had been sealed in barracks without food or water; when the American soldiers opened them it was rare to find more than one or two still alive. A group of kapos responsible for atrocities barricaded themselves in Block 32. Some committed suicide while others were torn apart by
1469-430: A subcamp, although it had separate administrative departments, such as Political Department . Initially, the watchtowers, equipped with machine guns and searchlights, were made of wood; later they were replaced by granite. In addition to the barbed-wire fence, an additional stone wall 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) high was built around it in 1941; patrols of guards went between the barriers. A third fence, of barbed wire,
1582-477: A village and most of the concentration camp buildings were demolished. As of 2017, the Poschacher quarry adjacent to Gusen I was still in use, the former Bergkristall tunnels are privately owned and not open to the public, as is the entrance to Gusen I. The memorial at Gusen, privately built, was acquired by the government in 1997 which has since maintained it and also built a small museum nearby in 2004. In
1695-501: A women's Waffen-SS unit in March 1945. Some prisoners, no longer capable of hard labor, were sent from Mauthausen to Gusen in order to be killed. At Gusen, the SS forced arriving prisoners to run in order to test their fitness. Those unable to perform the task sufficiently well were immediately killed, a fate that befell 3,000 of the first 10,000 prisoners sent to Gusen. Because they were never registered, these prisoners were not included in
1808-466: The Appellplatz for SS amusement. Participants were rewarded with extra rations. In 1942, a Nazi camp brothel opened at the camp in order to reduce the number of prisoner functionaries who were tempted to coerce young male inmates into sex. At the brothel ten women, all considered "Aryan", were coerced into offering sex in exchange for a false promise of their freedom. Most of them were drafted into
1921-573: The Kampfgruppe Oberdonau and were replaced by Viennese firemen, former Wehrmacht personnel, and Volkssturm militiamen. Nazi human experimentation took place at Gusen, including surgical and tuberculosis experiments. SS physician Helmuth Vetter , who arrived in 1944, conducted the tuberculosis experiments by injecting the lungs of healthy prisoners with phlegmonic pus. The victims were then forced to run until they collapsed, at which point they were killed by benzene injection to
2034-592: The Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken up. Most Austrians wanted a union with Germany, but the Allied victors forbade a plebiscite from being held and forced the new country to change its name from " Republic of German-Austria " to "Republic of Austria". On 13 March 1938, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in the Anschluss ; German forces were greeted by enthusiastic crowds. Immediately afterwards,
2147-535: The Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities . Freestone (masonry) A freestone is a type of stone used in masonry for molding , tracery and other replication work required to be worked with the chisel . Freestone, so named because it can be freely cut in any direction, must be fine-grained, uniform and soft enough to be cut easily without shattering or splitting. Some sources, including numerous nineteenth-century dictionaries, say that
2260-544: The German Red Cross . Mauthausen initially served as a strictly-run prison camp for common criminals, prostitutes, and other categories of "Incorrigible Law Offenders". On 8 May 1939 it was converted to a labour camp for political prisoners. The three Gusen concentration camps held a significant proportion of prisoners within the Mauthausen-Gusen complex. For most of its history, this exceeded
2373-515: The German nuclear weapon project . The panel indicated that stairs uncovered during an excavation prompted by the allegations led to an SS shooting range . The political function of the camp continued in parallel with its economic role. Until at least 1942, it was used for the imprisonment and murder of the Nazis' political and ideological enemies, real and imagined. Initially, the camp did not have
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#17327767192002486-707: The Sectarians , as they were dubbed by the Nazi regime, meaning Bible Students , or as they are called today, Jehovah's Witnesses . The reason for their imprisonment was their rejection of giving the loyalty oath to Hitler and their refusal to participate in any kind of military service. In early 1940, many Poles were transferred to the Mauthausen–Gusen complex. The first groups were mostly composed of artists, scientists, Boy Scouts , teachers, and university professors, who were arrested during Intelligenzaktion and
2599-590: The Spanish Civil War arrived on 24 January 1941, and the 3,846 Spaniards made up most of the arrivals in the first half of 1941. Despite being targeted for excessive punishment by the SS guards—sixty percent died by the end of 1941, mostly in the quarries—the Spanish prisoners gained a reputation for solidarity. Of the more than 4,200 who passed through the camp, only 444 Spaniards were still alive by 1944. In mid-1941, when Aktion T4 personnel arrived at
2712-610: The Steyr-Daimler-Puch company was built in Gusen . Altogether, 45 larger companies took part in making Mauthausen and its subcamps one of the most profitable concentration camps of Nazi Germany, with more than 11,000,000 ℛ︁ℳ︁ in profits in 1944 alone (EUR 86.7 million in 2024). The companies using slave labourers from Mauthausen included: Prisoners were also rented out as slave labour to work on local farms, road construction, reinforcing and repairing
2825-567: The defeat of France in 1940 or handed over to the Germans by the Vichy authorities. The largest of these groups arrived at Gusen in January 1941. On 24 August 1940, a cattle train from Angoulême with 927 Spanish refugees onboard arrived at Mauthausen. The group believed that they were being taken to Vichy. Of the 490 males, those over the age of 13 were separated from their families and taken to
2938-471: The hospital camp – as it was called by the German authorities – was, in fact, a "hospital" only in name. Such brutality was not accidental. Former prisoner Edward Mosberg said: "If you stopped for a moment, the SS either shot you or pushed you off the cliff to your death." The SS guards would often force prisoners – exhausted from hours of hard labour without sufficient food and water – to race up
3051-579: The 190,000 inmates died at Mauthausen or its subcamps. Mauthausen was one of the first massive concentration camp complexes in Nazi Germany, and the last to be liberated by the Allies . The Mauthausen main camp is now a museum. On 9 August 1938, prisoners from Dachau concentration camp near Munich were sent to the town of Mauthausen in Austria , to begin building a new slave labour camp. The site
3164-527: The 190,000 people deported to Mauthausen died there or in one of its subcamps. SS Captain Albert Sauer presided over the initial establishment of the camp on 1 August 1938 and remained camp commandant until 17 February 1939. Franz Ziereis assumed control as commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp from 1939 until the camp was liberated by the American forces in 1945. The infamous Death's- Head Unit or SS-Totenkopfverbände charged with guarding
3277-468: The 2010s, local municipalities around Mauthausen and Gusen set up a Bewußtseinsregion ("consciousness region") in order to promote preservation and restoration of the sites. In 2013, two archaeologists conducted rescue archaeology at the former Gusen crematorium. In late 2019 and early 2020, the Polish government suggested that the Gusen village should be bought and additional efforts made to commemorate
3390-621: The Gusen crematorium, a double-muffle model built by Topf and Sons , began in December 1940. In use from late 1941, the crematorium was under the command of SS-Oberscharführer Karl Wassner. Either Chmielewski or SS-Hauptscharführer Heinz Jentsch [ pl ] invented a new execution method called Totbaden (death baths). Prisoners unable to work and others the SS wanted to kill were forced to stand under cold showers until they died, which could take twenty minutes to two hours. The drains were blocked and those who tried to avoid
3503-426: The Gusen quarry, just 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from Mauthausen. The camp was built to increase the productivity of workers at the quarry just north of the site, who otherwise had to walk from the Mauthausen main camp and back again, reducing their productive hours. Of all the quarries near Mauthausen, Gusen produced most of the architectural quality granite; it also produced freestone , paving stone , and gravel which
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3616-557: The Mauthausen camp, and 60 in the whole camp complex. Female guards also staffed the Mauthausen subcamps at Hirtenberg , Lenzing (the main women's subcamp in Austria), and Sankt Lambrecht . The Chief Overseers at Mauthausen were firstly Margarete Freinberger , and then Jane Bernigau . Almost all the female Overseers who served in Mauthausen were recruited from Austrian cities and towns between September and November 1944. In early April 1945, at least 2,500 more female prisoners came from
3729-576: The Me 262 works was already finished and the Germans were able to assemble 1,250 planes a month. This was the second largest plane factory in Germany after the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp , which was also underground. In January 2015, a "panel of archaeologists, historians and other experts" ruled out the earlier claims of an Austrian filmmaker that a bunker underneath the camp was connected to
3842-581: The Messerschmitt company could build an assembly plant to produce the Messerschmitt Me 262 and V-2 rockets . In addition to planes, some 7,000 square metres (75,000 sq ft) of Gusen II tunnels served as factories for various war materials. In late 1944, roughly 11,000 of the Gusen I and II inmates were working in underground facilities. An additional 6,500 worked on expanding the underground network of tunnels and halls. In 1945,
3955-479: The Reich, rather than exploitation of their economic potential through slave labor, so mortality rates were higher than at most concentration camps. One group of prisoners would die, but the number was maintained due to transports of incoming prisoners. Thus, the number of prisoners was maintained at around 6,000 to 7,000 until 1943 despite the high death rate. Work in the quarries, which was specifically intended to cause
4068-401: The SS surrender, Kosiek tested the bridge and bypassed Gusen II and Gusen I on the way to Mauthausen. Over the next twenty-four hours, the remaining SS burned all documents relating to the Messerschmitt 262 in the Gusen crematorium. Kosiek accepted the surrender of the 800 SS at Gusen while returning to headquarters the next day. More American forces arrived at Gusen later the same day. They found
4181-540: The SS. The quarry near Gusen was on land leased and later purchased from the Poschacher [ de ] firm. It is likely that the SS had already been planning to build a concentration camp because the deal for the Gusen quarry was made in May 1938, before that of the Mauthausen quarry. The first and largest subcamp of Mauthausen, Gusen began in December 1939 with a work detail of 10 or 12 German and Austrian prisoners who were assigned to build barracks adjacent to
4294-604: The St. Georgen road. Its prisoners—a planned 10,000—were dedicated to arms construction at the Bergkristall; others worked for Steyr-Daimler-Puch. At Gusen II, many of the personnel were Luftwaffe guards , numbering 2,000 by the war's end. One of the main commandos, Bergkristall-Fertigung, worked for the Luftwaffe while the other, Bergkristall-Bau, for the SS. By the end of 1944, there were 12,000 prisoners at Gusen II. Gusen III
4407-518: The United States 11th Armored Division early in the morning of 5 May 1945. During the chaos of liberation, a number of former kapos were killed. After the war, some SS personnel and kapos were tried for their crimes, although most went unpunished. The site was redeveloped into a privately owned village, although there is a small museum run by the Austrian government. Following World War I,
4520-573: The Waffen-SS. From 1943, the purpose of the camp was switched from quarrying to armaments production in vast underground factories, to protect the industrial output from Allied bombing . Work on the tunnels was begun by the Kellerbau Kommando at the original Gusen camp, which had a high mortality rate. The tunnels at Gusen were initially used for the production of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aircraft. The work took on new urgency after
4633-502: The as-yet unfinished Mauthausen camp became overcrowded with prisoners. The number of inmates rose from 1,080 in late 1938 to over 3,000 a year later. At about that time, the construction of a new camp "for the Poles" began in Gusen (Langenstein) about 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) away after an order by the SS (Schutzstaffel) in December 1939. The new camp (later named Gusen I ) became operational in May 1940. The first inmates were put in
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4746-595: The banks of the Danube , constructing large residential areas in Sankt Georgen, and excavating archaeological sites in Spielberg . When the Allied strategic bombing campaign started to target the German war industry, German planners decided to move production to underground facilities that were impenetrable to enemy aerial bombardment. In Gusen I, the prisoners were ordered to build several large tunnels beneath
4859-544: The bombing of the Messerschmitt plant in Regensburg on 17 August 1943 . Afterwards, 35 per cent of fighter production derived from Gusen and Flossenbürg. By July 1944, 4,000 Gusen prisoners were working on aircraft production, and 77 trainloads of aircraft parts were exported each month. Other prisoners produced rifles, machine guns, and airplane motors for Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG in 16 large warehouses northeast of
4972-505: The bridge near Gusen which was intended to be used by American tanks. He first reached Gusen III, where the newly recruited guards, formerly firemen from Vienna, were very willing to surrender. Only two American soldiers were left behind to escort them to the American brigade's headquarters. North of St. Georgen, Kosiek encountered a Red Cross representative who told him that there was a concentration camp at Mauthausen and 400 SS who wanted to surrender. Because he did not have enough men to accept
5085-405: The camp and ensured that life was characterized by violence and sadism. During Chmielewski's rule, one half of prisoners died. From October 1942 until the end of the war, SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Friedrich August Seidler was the commandant. Seidler preferred "Prussian-style" brutality instead of his predecessor's indiscriminate style. Until 1943, Gusen was run more as a branch of the main camp than as
5198-538: The camp at Mauthausen, the number of subcamps expanded over time. In January 1945, the camps contained roughly 85,000 inmates. As at other Nazi concentration camps, the inmates at Mauthausen and its subcamps were forced to work as slave labour , under conditions that caused many deaths. Mauthausen and its subcamps included quarries, munitions factories, mines, arms factories and plants assembling Me 262 fighter aircraft. The conditions at Mauthausen were even more severe than at most other Nazi concentration camps. Half of
5311-403: The camp complex. Many more perished from exhaustion during death marches , or in railway wagons, where the prisoners were confined at sub-zero temperatures for several days before their arrival, without adequate food or water. Prisoner transports were considered less important than other important services, and could be kept on sidings for days as other trains passed. Many of those who survived
5424-447: The camp perimeter in addition to work detachments was headed by Georg Bachmayer , a captain in the SS . Further records of camp leadership were destroyed by Nazi officials in effort to cover up war atrocities and those involved. Several Norwegian Waffen SS volunteers worked as guards or as instructors for prisoners from Nordic countries , according to senior researcher Terje Emberland at
5537-459: The camp was redesignated Gusen I , and additional camps, Gusen II and Gusen III , were built. Prisoners were forced to construct vast underground factories, the main one being the Bergkristall [ de ; es ] , intended for the production of Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter aircraft. Nearly a thousand fuselages were produced there by the war's end. The camp was liberated by
5650-424: The camp's files and evidence and often allocated newly arrived prisoners the camp numbers of those who had already been killed, so the exact death toll of Mauthausen and its subcamps is impossible to calculate. The matter is further complicated due to some of the inmates of Gusen being murdered in Mauthausen, and at least 3,423 were sent to Hartheim Castle, 40.7 km (25.3 mi) away. Overall, more than 90,000 of
5763-406: The camp, most of the prisoners were Poles and Spaniards. Those unable to work were selected for death by T4 staff. In 1941 many Dutch Jews were deported to Mauthausen. None survived. Many Soviet prisoners of war were also deported to Gusen in late 1941 and 1942. Until 1943, by which point 90% had died, they were housed and registered separately from other prisoners. Yugoslavs , Soviet civilians, and
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#17327767192005876-479: The camps at Gusen and Mauthausen mostly served the local quarries, from 1942 onwards they began to be included in the German war machine. To accommodate the ever-growing number of slave workers, additional subcamps (German: Außenlager ) of Mauthausen were built. By the end of the war, the list included 101 camps (including 49 major subcamps) which covered most of modern Austria, from Mittersill south of Salzburg to Schwechat east of Vienna and from Passau on
5989-705: The course of the AB Action . Camp Gusen II was called by Germans Vernichtungslager für die polnische Intelligenz ("Extermination camp for the Polish intelligentsia"). Later in the war, new arrivals were from every category of the "unwanted", but educated people and so-called political prisoners constituted the largest part of all inmates until the end of the war. During World War II, large groups of Spanish Republicans were also transferred to Mauthausen and its subcamps. Most of them were former Republican soldiers or activists who had fled to France after Francisco Franco 's victory and then were captured by German forces after
6102-467: The death of prisoners, continued until the end of the war despite the opening of war production. Prisoners faced starvation rations, forced labor, and beatings by guards and kapos, while being denied basic sanitary facilities. The camp for prisoner accommodations was a rectangle, which covered 180 by 400 metres (590 ft × 1,310 ft) and had 32 prisoner barracks, was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Its intended capacity of 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners
6215-515: The efforts of a dedicated counter-intelligence unit, reports of aircraft production at Gusen II were received by United States intelligence from the Austrian resistance on 3 December 1944. In late January 1944, there were 7,312 prisoners, which increased to 24,250 in all three subcamps at the end of 1944 and decreased to 20,487 by 4 May 1945. About 4,000 Warsaw Uprising prisoners were sent to Gusen in late 1944 and additional inmates arrived due to
6328-432: The entrance was 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northwest of the camp. The space was to serve as an underground factory for Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter aircraft, sufficient to produce 1,250 fuselages per month along with the entire slat production necessary. Work began on the tunnels in March 1945 and was never completed. Nevertheless, aircraft production began in early 1945 and before 1 May, 987 fuselages were built. Most of
6441-544: The entrances of the Kellerbau and Bergkristal tunnels. This "murderous brainstorming", in the words of historian Daniel Blatman , was never carried out due to the collapse of Nazi authority. Individual SS members began to desert in large numbers on the night of 2–3 May. More SS left the camp in groups on 3 May 1945, with the pretext of fighting the Soviet army, although most, in fact, hid in the surrounding woods and hills. Over
6554-457: The evacuation of concentration camps in early 1945 as Allied armies approached. By the end of March, there were about 24,000 prisoners in the three Gusen camps. In April, additional prisoners were transferred to Gusen from subcamps closer to the front line. Many prisoners had become Muselmänner (emaciated), many suffered from typhus, dysentery, tuberculosis, or pneumonia, and some lacked clothes. Overcrowding meant that there were three people to
6667-537: The extermination camp nearby. 357 of the 490 would die in the camp. The remaining women and children were then sent back to Spain. In early 1941, almost all the Poles and Spaniards, except for a small group of specialists working in the quarry's stone mill, were transferred from Mauthausen to Gusen. Following the outbreak of the Soviet-German War in 1941, the camps started to receive a large number of Soviet POWs. Most of them were kept in huts separated from
6780-575: The factory workers were allowed to receive food parcels from their families (mostly Poles and Frenchmen). This allowed many of them not only to evade the risk of starvation, but also to help other prisoners who had no relatives outside the camps – or who were not allowed to receive parcels. In February 1945, the camp was the site of the Nazi war crime Mühlviertler Hasenjagd ("hare hunt") where around 500 escaped prisoners (mostly Soviet officers) were mercilessly hunted down and murdered by SS, local law enforcement and civilians. The Germans destroyed much of
6893-515: The female subcamps at Amstetten , St. Lambrecht , Hirtenberg, and the Flossenbürg subcamp at Freiberg . According to Daniel Patrick Brown, Hildegard Lächert also served at Mauthausen. The available Mauthausen inmate statistics from the spring of 1943, shows that there were 2,400 prisoners below the age of 20, which was 12.8% of the 18,655 population. By late March 1945, the number of juvenile prisoners in Mauthausen increased to 15,048, which
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#17327767192007006-406: The first prisoners and guards moved in. The camp was directly adjacent to the road between Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and nearby Langenstein ; former prisoners recalled Austrian children passing by on the way to school. Until the camp wall was completed, passerby had a full view of what was happening in the camp. Mauthausen and Gusen were the only concentration camps rated by the SS as Category III,
7119-466: The first two huts (No. 7 and 8) on 17 April 1940, while the first transport of prisoners – mostly from the camps in Dachau and Sachsenhausen – arrived just over a month later, on 25 May. Like nearby Mauthausen, the Gusen camps also rented inmates out to various local businesses as slave labour. In October 1941, several huts were separated from the Gusen subcamp by barbed wire and turned into
7232-472: The five other large slave labour centres: Auschwitz-Birkenau , Flossenbürg , Gross-Rosen , Marburg and Natzweiler-Struthof , in terms of both production quota and profits. The list of companies using slave labour from Mauthausen and its subcamps was long, and included both national corporations and small, local firms and communities. Some parts of the quarries were converted into a Mauser machine pistol assembly plant. In 1943, an underground factory for
7345-451: The following major child/prisoner sub-groups: 5,809 foreign civilian labourers, 5,055 political prisoners, 3,654 Jews, and 330 Russian POWs. There were also 23 Romani children, 20 so-called "anti-social elements", six Spaniards, and three Jehovah's Witnesses. Mauthausen was one of the most brutal and severe of the Nazi concentration camps. The inmates suffered not only from malnutrition , overcrowded huts and constant abuse and beatings by
7458-576: The gas chamber at Hartheim Euthanasia Center ; the total number of victims from Gusen is estimated to be 1,100. In April 1945, 800 prisoners were beaten to death in Gusen II and transported to Gusen I for cremation. According to the official records, 27,842 people died at Gusen. The actual number is believed to be at least 35,000 or more than 37,000. More than 10,000 of these deaths are believed to have occurred in 1945. For most of its history (except 1940 and 1943), there were more prisoners in Gusen than in
7571-416: The groups evacuated from Auschwitz consisted of qualified workers for the ever-growing industry of Mauthausen and its subcamps, but as the evacuation proceeded other categories of people were also transported to Mauthausen, Gusen, Vienna or Melk . Over time, Auschwitz had to almost stop accepting new prisoners and most were directed to Mauthausen instead. The last group – roughly 10,000 prisoners –
7684-525: The growth of forced labour industry in various subcamps of Mauthausen, the situation of some of the prisoners improved significantly. While the food rations were increasingly limited every month, the heavy industry necessitated skilled specialists rather than unqualified workers and the brutality of the camp's SS and Kapos was limited. While the prisoners were still beaten on a daily basis and the Muselmänner were still exterminated, from early 1943 on some of
7797-453: The guards and kapos, but also from exceptionally hard labour. The work in the quarries – often in unbearable heat or in temperatures as low as −30 °C (−22 °F) – led to exceptionally high mortality rates. The food rations were limited, and during the 1940–1942 period, an average inmate weighed 40 kilograms (88 lb). It is estimated that the average energy content of food rations dropped from about 1,750 calories (7,300 kJ)
7910-549: The hard labour and poor conditions, or were deliberately killed. After the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 and the outbreak of the partisan resistance in summer of the same year, many people suspected of aiding the Yugoslav resistance were sent to the Mauthausen camp, mostly from areas under direct German occupation, namely northern Slovenia and Serbia . An estimated 1,500 Slovenes died in Mauthausen. Throughout
8023-428: The highest rating, and conditions in Gusen were even worse than at the main camp. In 1940 and 1941, the average life expectancy was six months, and the average weight of prisoners in 1940–1942 was 40 kilograms (88 lb). In late 1941, a typhus epidemic broke out, which resulted in the mass killing of ill prisoners. The main purpose of the camp was extermination through labor of real and perceived political enemies of
8136-403: The hills surrounding the camp (code-named Kellerbau ). By the end of World War II the prisoners had dug 29,400 square metres (316,000 sq ft) to house a small-arms factory. In January 1944, similar tunnels were also built beneath the village of Sankt Georgen by the inmates of Gusen II subcamp (code-named Bergkristall ). They dug roughly 50,000 square metres (540,000 sq ft) so
8249-444: The journey died before they could be registered, whilst others were given the camp numbers of prisoners who had already been killed. Most were then accommodated in the camps or in the newly established tent camp (German: Zeltlager ) just outside the Mauthausen subcamp, where roughly 2,000 people were forced into tents intended for not more than 800 inmates, and then starved to death. As in all other Nazi concentration camps, not all
8362-587: The lungs, which prolonged death. Most of the prisoner functionaries, especially block leaders, were German criminal prisoners who were initially picked by Chmielewski. Some kapos were notorious for their brutality, including Wolf, a German who executed prisoners by hanging and stamped on the bodies, and the Spaniards Asturias, Félix Domingo, Indalecio González González, Losa, Tomás, and a man called "el Negro". The Austrian kapo Rudolf Fiegl participated in gassing inmates. On Sundays, football teams played on
8475-473: The main camp. Until 1944, its prisoners were inscribed in the register of the main camp. Gusen was initially designated as a "reeducation camp" for Polish members of the intelligentsia. The first transport of Polish prisoners arrived the same day that the camp officially opened. By the end of 1940, eight thousand Poles had been transported to the subcamp—largely from Dachau and Sachsenhausen —and 1,500 had already died. The first transport of Republican veterans of
8588-408: The manufacturing work, including quality control, was done by prisoners, employed by Messerschmitt via the SS company DEST. During air raids, Austrian civilians were ordered into the tunnels and were separated from the prisoners only by a wooden partition. Prisoners who worked on arms production needed skills to be effective at their jobs and were therefore less replaceable. Constructing and expanding
8701-438: The mob. Following the liberation, some former kapos were killed by surviving inmates. Although German-speaking prisoners who had angered the numerically dominant Poles were at most risk of lynching, most prisoners were more interested in obtaining food than revenge, and most kapos escaped unmolested and were never held to account for their crimes. Russian and Polish prisoners attacked each other and had to be forcibly separated. In
8814-408: The next day, the prisoners gradually realized that they were free; able-bodied prisoners left the camp. Most of the SS had left by the time elements of the United States 11th Armored Division arrived in the early morning of 5 May. Staff Sergeant Albert J. Kosiek, in charge of a platoon in the 41st Cavalry Squadron, was ordered to investigate a suspected enemy strongpoint near Mauthausen, and to check
8927-469: The next several weeks, local Austrians lived in fear of renegade SS, bands of maurading kapos, and former prisoners. On 8 May, Nazi Party members were ordered to bury the dead in the potato field between Gusen I and II while local citizens were forced to watch. On 27 July 1945, American troops retreated from the area according to the Yalta Agreement , taking with them all the unfinished aircraft from
9040-471: The next, and so on, all the way down the stairs. In the quarry, prisoners were forced to carry the boulders from morning until night, whipped by Nazi guards. The inmates of Mauthausen, Gusen I, and Gusen II had access to a separate part of the camp for the sick – the so-called Krankenlager . Despite the fact that (roughly) 100 medics from among the inmates were working there, they were not given any medication and could offer only basic first aid. Thus
9153-534: The number of prisoners at the Mauthausen main camp itself. DEST began purchasing land at Sankt Georgen an der Gusen in May 1938. During 1938 and 1939, inmates of the nearby Mauthausen makeshift camp marched daily to the granite quarries at St Georgen/Gusen, which were more productive and more important for DEST than the Wienergraben Quarry. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939,
9266-429: The official death statistics. After two Polish prisoners, Victor Lukawski and Franc Kapacki, escaped on 13 August 1940, the eight hundred prisoners in their work detail had to run carrying rocks and were beaten by SS guards. Later, they had to stand at attention all night without food. Fourteen Polish prisoners died and so did Lukawski and Kapacki, who were beaten to death a few days later after being caught. Construction on
9379-515: The original Gusen camp. In the tunnels, prisoners were supervised by Messerschmitt employees (engineers, foremen and skilled workers) who were forbidden to discuss the project with anyone on pain of death. In January 1944, engineer Karl Fiebinger's plans called for 50,000 square metres (540,000 sq ft) of underground floor space in the Bergkristall [ de ; es ] tunnels (also known as B8 and "Esche 2"), equivalent to 12 acres (4.9 ha), stretching for 22 kilometres (14 mi);
9492-510: The pigs with rations siphoned from the supply intended for prisoners. From 25 May 1940 to October 1942 or January 1943, the SS commandant was SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Chmielewski , who had been a member of the SS since 1932 and the camp SS since 1935. His Rapportführer (Report Supervisor) was Anton Streitwieser [ de ] and Kurt Kirchner was the labor service leader. Often drunk, he personally beat, kicked, whipped, and killed prisoners; he had considerable autonomy in running
9605-438: The plans of Albert Speer and other proponents of Nazi architecture , for which large quantities of granite were needed. The money to fund the construction of the Mauthausen camp was gathered from a variety of sources, including commercial loans from Dresdner Bank and Prague -based Böhmische Escompte-Bank ; the so-called Reinhardt's fund (meaning money stolen from the inmates of the concentration camps themselves); and from
9718-584: The prewar Austro-German border to the Loibl Pass on the border with Yugoslavia . The subcamps were divided into several categories, depending on their main function: Produktionslager for factory workers, Baulager for construction, Aufräumlager for cleaning the rubble in Allied-bombed towns, and Kleinlager (small camps) where the inmates worked specifically for the SS. The production output of Mauthausen and its subcamps exceeded that of each of
9831-467: The prisoners . Among the doctors to organise them were Sigbert Ramsauer , Karl Josef Gross , Eduard Krebsbach and Aribert Heim . Heim was dubbed "Doctor Death" by the inmates; he was in Gusen for seven weeks, which was enough to carry out his experiments. Hans Maršálek estimated that an average life expectancy of newly arrived prisoners in Gusen varied from six months between 1940 and 1942, to less than three months in early 1945. Paradoxically, with
9944-413: The prisoners were equal. Their treatment depended largely on the category assigned to each inmate , as well as their nationality and rank within the system. The so-called kapos , or prisoners who had been recruited by their captors to police their fellow prisoners, were given more food and higher pay in the form of concentration camp coupons which could be exchanged for cigarettes in the canteen, as well as
10057-407: The rest of the camp. The Soviet prisoners of war were a major part of the first groups to be gassed in the newly built gas chamber in early 1942. In 1944, a large group of Hungarian and Dutch Jews, about 8,000 people altogether, was also transferred to the camp. Much like all the other large groups of prisoners that were transferred to Mauthausen and its subcamps, most of them either died as a result of
10170-419: The stairs carrying blocks of stone. Those who survived the ordeal would often be placed in a line-up at the edge of a cliff known as "The Parachutists Wall" (German: Fallschirmspringerwand ). At gunpoint, each prisoner would have the option of being shot or pushing the prisoner in front of him off the cliff. Other common methods of extermination of prisoners who were either sick, unfit for further labour or as
10283-408: The tunnels, and speed of construction was valued much higher than prisoners' lives, which had "disastrous" consequences for the prisoners. At first, prisoners had to walk to the Bergkristall, but later a purpose-built railway transported 100 prisoners per cattle car. Prisoners worked for a week in the day shift, and the next week in the night shift. They had to spend up to 14 hours a day in transit or in
10396-401: The tunnels, where the dust was so thick that they had to use headlamps to use pneumatic drills. They were quickly worn out by the dust and lack of oxygen such that 100 died in the tunnels each day. In 1944, two subcamps of Gusen opened and the main camp was redesignated "Gusen I". Gusen II, which opened on 9 March, was close to the main camp, separated only by a potato field, and also located on
10509-547: The tunnels. The remaining prisoners who were too weak to move were put in the charge of the Soviet occupation forces. At least 16 former guards and kapos were convicted during the Mauthausen Trial at Dachau. Former kapo Rudolf Fiegl was convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged for gassing prisoners, as was the SS doctor Vetter. Chmielewski escaped the first trial and lived in Austria under false papers. In 1956 he
10622-535: The victims of the camp. In January 2020, the Austrian government announced that it was setting aside EU€ 2 million ( USD$ 2.2 million) to that end. Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Linz ), Upper Austria . It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The three Gusen concentration camps in and around
10735-475: The village of St. Georgen/Gusen , just a few kilometres from Mauthausen, held a significant proportion of prisoners within the camp complex, at times exceeding the number of prisoners at the Mauthausen main camp. The Mauthausen main camp operated from 8 August 1938, several months after the German annexation of Austria , to 5 May 1945, when it was liberated by the United States Army . Starting with
10848-437: The wall of a Mauthausen cell Although the Mauthausen camp complex was mostly a labour camp for men, a women's camp was opened in Mauthausen, in September 1944, with the first transport of female prisoners from Auschwitz . Eventually, more women and children came to Mauthausen from Ravensbrück , Bergen-Belsen , Gross-Rosen, and Buchenwald . Along with the female prisoners came some female guards; 20 are known to have served in
10961-475: The war, an improvised gas chamber was devised at Gusen in a crudely converted barracks. The number of prisoners who were murdered there is estimated at 800 or more than 1,000. Previously, on 26 March 1942, around 100 Soviet prisoners of war were gassed in Block 16 with Zyklon B . Other prisoners were transported to Mauthausen to be gassed, or murdered in the gas van between Mauthausen and Gusen. From early 1942, sick prisoners were selected at Gusen to be murdered in
11074-413: The water were drowned. Afterward, falsified causes of death were entered into the official record. This execution method was used only at Gusen, and was considered inefficient by SS actuaries. During winter, prisoners were stripped naked and forced to stand outside of Block 32 at night in groups of 150. Typically, half would die before morning and the rest would die the next day. During the final months of
11187-694: The years of World War II, the Mauthausen and its subcamps received new prisoners in smaller transports daily, mostly from other concentration camps in German-occupied Europe. Most of the prisoners at the subcamps of Mauthausen had been kept in a number of different detention sites before they arrived. The most notable of such centres for Mauthausen and its subcamps were the camps at Dachau and Auschwitz. The first transports from Auschwitz arrived in February 1942. The second transport in June of that year
11300-428: Was 19.1% of the 78,547 Mauthausen inmates. The number of imprisoned children increased 6.2 times, whereas the total number of adult prisoners during the same period multiplied by a factor of only four. These numbers reflected the increasing use of Polish, Czech, Soviet, and Balkan teenagers as slave labour as the war continued. Statistics showing the composition of juvenile inmates shortly before their liberation reveal
11413-459: Was 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) north, near Lungitz ; its 260 prisoners worked in a nearby brick factory and in manufacturing parts for Messerschmitt, in barracks rather than tunnels. Some also worked on a project to connect Lungitz to St. Georgen by tunnel. According to testimony, conditions at Gusen III were even worse than the other two subcamps. Both subcamps were under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Max Pausch [ pl ] . Despite
11526-554: Was a high-ranking official of the Schutzstaffel (SS). It rented the quarries from the City of Vienna in 1938 and started the construction of the Mauthausen camp. A year later, the company ordered the construction of the first camp at Gusen . The granite mined in the quarries had previously been used to pave the streets of Vienna, but Nazi authorities envisioned a complete reconstruction of major German towns in accordance with
11639-436: Was added to encircle the entire camp complex, including external factories and quarries. The SS had a separate complex for its own barracks, located outside of the prisoner camp. In February 1940, there were about 600 SS guards (one for each ten prisoners). This later increased to 2,000, and 3,000 by 1944. They belonged to four Camp SS companies, part of SS-Totenkopfsturmbann Mauthausen . In early 1945, many were drafted into
11752-416: Was at the base of the "Stairs of Death". Prisoners were forced to carry roughly-hewn blocks of stone – often weighing as much as 50 kilograms (110 lb) – up the 186 stairs, one prisoner behind the other. As a result, many exhausted prisoners collapsed in front of the other prisoners in the line, and then fell on top of the other prisoners, creating a domino effect ; the first prisoner falling onto
11865-548: Was chosen because of the nearby granite quarry and its proximity to Linz . Although the camp was controlled by the German state from the beginning, it was founded by a private company as an economic enterprise. The owner of the Wiener-Graben quarry (the Marbacher-Bruch and Bettelberg quarries) was a DEST Company: an acronym for Deutsche Erd– und Steinwerke GmbH . The company was led by Oswald Pohl , who
11978-538: Was evacuated in the last wave in January 1945, only a few weeks before the Soviet liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. Among them was a large group of civilians arrested by the Germans after the failure of the Warsaw uprising , but by the liberation not more than 500 of them were still alive. Altogether, during the final months of the war, 23,364 prisoners from other concentration camps arrived at
12091-424: Was much larger and numbered some 1,200 prisoners. Similar groups were sent from Auschwitz to Gusen and Mauthausen in April and November 1943, and then in January and February 1944. Finally, after Adolf Eichmann visited Mauthausen in May of that year, Mauthausen received the first group of roughly 8,000 Hungarian Jews from Auschwitz; the first group to be evacuated from that camp before the Soviet advance. Initially,
12204-625: Was one of the few camps in the West to use a gas chamber on a regular basis. In the beginning, an improvised mobile gas chamber – a van with the exhaust pipe connected to the inside – shuttled between Mauthausen and Gusen . It was capable of killing about 120 prisoners at a time when it was completed. Until early 1940, the largest group of inmates consisted of German, Austrian and Czechoslovak socialists , communists , homosexuals, anarchists and people of Romani origin. Other groups of people to be persecuted solely on religious grounds were
12317-514: Was recognized and arrested. Following a 1961 trial in which he was convicted of 282 murders, he was sentenced to life in prison. Jentsch, involved in the "death baths", was arrested in West Germany, tried in Hagen in 1967, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. More than 70 criminal investigations were opened by West German prosecutors. The former site of Gusen I and II was redeveloped into
12430-432: Was sold by DEST. By January, the number of prisoners on the detail had increased to 400 and it included Polish prisoners from March. The prisoners were not given coats or gloves, and were not allowed to access the fires lit by kapos and SS guards. About 1,800 Mauthausen prisoners died between December and April, many of them while working on the construction details at Gusen. The camp was officially opened on 25 May 1940, when
12543-503: Was sold by the SS company DEST . Conditions were worse than at the Mauthausen main camp due to the camp's purpose of extermination through labor of real and perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. The life expectancy of prisoners was as short as six months, and at least 35,000 people died there from forced labor, starvation, and mass executions. From 1943, the camp was an important center of armaments production for Messerschmitt and Steyr-Daimler-Puch . In order to expand armaments production,
12656-469: Was soon exceeded. Twice a day, prisoners were counted at the roll-call plaza at the eastern end of the camp. Growth of the camp was fueled by the Gusen, Kastenhof, and Pierbauer quarries, whose stone was in demand throughout Austria. Commandants of Gusen reported directly to Mauthausen commandant SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Ziereis . The first commandant was Anton Streitwieser, who was dismissed in May 1940 for running an unauthorized pig farm and feeding
12769-458: Was to quarry granite for Nazi architectural projects . The location was chosen for the quarries around the villages of Mauthausen and Sankt Georgen an der Gusen , leased by the SS enterprise DEST . The concentration camp, located 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Linz , was officially established in August. By the end of next month, prisoners from Dachau had finished the barracks for prisoners and
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