Außenlager des KZ Flossenbürg (September 2019)

The expansion of

Flossenbürg concentration camp Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, adjacent to the town of F ...

led to the establishment of subcamps, the first of which was established at

Stulln Stulln is a municipality in the district of Schwandorf in Bavaria, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and t ...

in February 1942 to provide forced labor to a mining company. Many of them were located in the

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...

or across the border in the

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German oc ...

. The vast majority were established after 1 March 1944. Initially, the subcamps were not involved in armaments production, which changed in the second half of 1944 due to a large influx of available prisoners and the activities of the ''

Jägerstab The ''Jägerstab'' (Fighter Staff) was a Nazi German governmental task force whose aim was to increase production of fighter aircraft during World War II. Established in March 1944, it was composed of government and SS personnel, as well as rep ...

'', which sought to increase German aircraft production. The ''Jägerstabs dispersal of aircraft production spurred the expansion of the subcamp system in 1944 and resulted in the establishment of the two largest of the subcamps, at

Hersbruck Hersbruck () is a small town in Middle Franconia, Bavaria, Germany, belonging to the district Nürnberger Land. It is best known for the late-gothic artwork of the Hersbruck altar, the "Hirtenmuseum" and the landscape of Hersbruck Switzerland. ...

and Leitmeritz. In the second half of 1944, 45 new camps were created, compared to three camps in the previous six months. The staffing these new camps was increasingly filled by Luftwaffe soldiers, ''

Volksdeutsche In Nazi German terminology, ''Volksdeutsche'' () were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". The term is the nominalised plural of '' volksdeutsch'', with ''Volksdeutsche'' denoting a sin ...

'' SS men (ethnic Germans from outside the Reich), and SS women, for the subcamps containing female prisoners. By April 1945, 80% of the prisoners were at the subcamps. Of all the concentration camp systems, Flossenbürg's subcamp system was one of the three most important to the

economy of Nazi Germany Like many other Western nations at the time, Germany suffered the economic effects of the Great Depression with unemployment soaring around the Wall Street Crash of 1929. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he introduced poli ...

, along with Dachau's and

Mauthausen Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regu ...

List of subcamps

References

Citations

Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos

Other

Further reading