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Mauthausen was a
Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
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 regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...
of
Mauthausen Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern German ...
(roughly east of
Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...
),
Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, a ...
. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The three
Gusen concentration camp Gusen was a subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp operated by the SS () between the villages of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and Langestein in the Reichsgau Ostmark (currently Perg District, Upper Austria). Primarily populated by Polish priso ...
s in and around 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 The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Greater Germany" ...
, to 5 May 1945, when it was liberated by the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
. Starting with 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 Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, under conditions that caused many deaths. Mauthausen and its subcamps included quarries,
munition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapo ...
s factories, mines, arms factories and plants assembling
Me 262 The Messerschmitt Me 262, nicknamed ''Schwalbe'' (German: "Swallow") in fighter versions, or ''Sturmvogel'' (German: "Storm Bird") in fighter-bomber versions, is a fighter aircraft and fighter-bomber that was designed and produced by the German ...
fighter aircraft. The conditions at Mauthausen were even more severe than at most other Nazi concentration camps. Half of the 190,000 deportees 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.


Establishment of the main camp

On 9 August 1938, prisoners from
Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...
near
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
were sent to the town of Mauthausen in
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, to begin the construction of a new slave labour camp. The site was chosen because of the nearby
granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
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 German Earth and Stone Works (german: Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH, ) was an SS-owned company created to procure and manufacture building materials for state construction projects in Nazi Germany. DEST was a subsidiary company of ''Amtsgru ...
Company: an acronym for ''Deutsche Erd– und Steinwerke GmbH''. The company was led by
Oswald Pohl Oswald Ludwig Pohl (; 30 June 1892 – 7 June 1951) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. As the head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office and the head administrator of the Nazi concentration camps, he was a key figure in ...
, who was a high-ranking official of the ''
Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...
'' (SS). It rented the quarries from the City of
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
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 the Nazi authorities envisioned a complete reconstruction of major German towns in accordance with plans of
Albert Speer Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, he ...
and other proponents of
Nazi architecture Nazi architecture is the architecture promoted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime from 1933 until its fall in 1945, connected with urban planning in Nazi Germany. It is characterized by three forms: a stripped neoclassicism, typified by the ...
, 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 Dresdner Bank AG was a German bank and was based in Frankfurt. It was one of Germany's largest banking corporations and was acquired by competitor Commerzbank in May 2009. History 19th century The Dresdner Bank was established on 12 Novemb ...
and
Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
-based
Böhmische Escompte-Bank The Böhmische Escompte-Bank (BEB, cs, Česká eskomptní banka, ) was a significant Prague-based bank with branches in most major towns of Bohemia and, later, Czechoslovakia. In 1919 it was renamed Böhmische Escompte-Bank und Credit-Anstalt ( ...
; the so-called
Reinhardt's fund Reinhardt's fund (named after Aktion Reinhardt, which in turn was named after Reinhard Heydrich) was a group of Nazi German bank accounts where money and valuables stolen from concentration and death camp Nazi Germany used six extermination ...
(meaning money stolen from the inmates of the concentration camps themselves); and from the
German Red Cross The German Red Cross (german: Deutsches Rotes Kreuz ; DRK) is the national Red Cross Society in Germany. With 4 million members, it is the third largest Red Cross society in the world. The German Red Cross offers a wide range of services within ...
. 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 A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
which was mainly used for the incarceration of political prisoners.


Gusen

The three Gusen concentration camps held a significant proportion of prisoners within the Mauthausen-Gusen complex. For most of its history, this exceeded the number of prisoners at the Mauthausen main camp itself. DEST began purchasing land at St Georgen/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 Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the as-yet unfinished Mauthausen camp was already overcrowded with prisoners. The numbers 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 about 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 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 Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...
 – 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 A close-up view of a barbed wire Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is t ...
and turned into a separate ''Prisoner of War Labour Camp'' (german: link=no, Kriegsgefangenenarbeitslager). This camp had many
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...
, mostly Soviet 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, which had been seized from occupied territories, were sorted and then dispatched to Germany. Local quarries and businesses were in constant need of a new source of labour as more and more Austrians were drafted into the
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
. 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 about 12,000 to 17,000 inmates, who were deprived of even the most basic facilities. In December 1944, Gusen III was opened in nearby
Lungitz Lungitz is a village in the community of Katsdorf, Perg (district), Perg district of Upper Austria, Austria. During World War II it was the site of slave labour and the "Gusen III concentration camp, Gusen III" Subcamp (SS), sub-camp of the Gusen c ...
. Here, parts of a factory infrastructure were converted into the third Gusen camp. The rise in the number of subcamps could not catch 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.


Subcamps

As the production in Mauthausen and its subcamps was constantly increasing, so were the numbers of detainees and subcamps themselves. Although initially the camps of 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, links=no) 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 Mittersill ( bar, Mittasü) is a city in the federal state of Salzburg, Austria, in the Pinzgau region of the Alps. It is located on the Salzach River. It has a population of 5,408 as of 2011. Geography Mittersill lies approximately 25 km to the ...
south of
Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...
to
Schwechat Schwechat () is a town southeast of Vienna known for the Vienna International Airport and Schwechater beer. The city is home to the refineries of the Austrian national oil company OMV. Geography Schwechat is named after the river Schwechat, whi ...
east of
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
and from
Passau Passau (; bar, label=Central Bavarian, Båssa) is a city in Lower Bavaria, Germany, also known as the Dreiflüssestadt ("City of Three Rivers") as the river Danube is joined by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north. Passau's popu ...
on the prewar Austro-German border to the
Loibl Pass The Loibl Pass (german: Loiblpass) or Ljubelj Pass ( sl, prelaz Ljubelj) is a high mountain pass in the Karawanks chain of the Southern Limestone Alps, linking Austria with Slovenia. The Loibl Pass road is the shortest connection between the Cari ...
on the border with
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
. 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 were working specifically for the SS.


Forced labour


Business enterprise

The production output of Mauthausen and its subcamps exceeded that of each of the five other large slave labour centres:
Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, Flossenbürg,
Gross-Rosen Gross-Rosen was a network of Nazi concentration camps built and operated by Nazi Germany during World War II. The main camp was located in the German village of Gross-Rosen, now the modern-day Rogoźnica, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Rogoźnica in ...
,
Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...
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 Mauser, originally Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik ("Royal Württemberg Rifle Factory"), was a German arms manufacturer. Their line of bolt-action rifles and semi-automatic pistols has been produced since the 1870s for the German arme ...
machine pistol A machine pistol is an autoloading pistol capable of fully automatic fire. The term can also be used to describe a stockless handgun-style submachine gun. The term is a calque of ''Maschinenpistole'', the German word for submachine guns. Machine ...
assembly plant. In 1943, an underground factory for the
Steyr-Daimler-Puch Steyr-Daimler-Puch () was a large manufacturing conglomerate based in Steyr, Austria, which was broken up in stages between 1987 and 2001. The component parts and operations continued to exist under separate ownership and new names. History T ...
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 in profits in 1944 alone (EUR in ). The companies using slave labourers from Mauthausen included: *
DEST German Earth and Stone Works (german: Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH, ) was an SS-owned company created to procure and manufacture building materials for state construction projects in Nazi Germany. DEST was a subsidiary company of ''Amtsgru ...
cartel (producing bricks and quarrying stone for German state construction projects) *
Accumulatoren-Fabrik AFA The Accumulatoren-Fabrik Aktiengesellschaft (AFA) was a manufacturer of lead-acid batteries established in 1890 by Adolph Müller of the ''Accumulatoren-Fabrik Tudorschen Systems Müller & Einbeck'' with the participation of the Siemens AG and AEG c ...
(the main producer of batteries for German
U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...
s) *
Bayer Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of busi ...
(the main German producer of medicines and medications) *
Deutsche Bergwerks- und Hüttenbau Deutsche Bergwerks- und Hüttenbau GmbH (DBH, German for ''German Mine Construction'') was a German company specializing in construction of mines and quarries A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construc ...
(constructing mines and quarries) *
Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...
-based
Eisenwerke Oberdonau Eisenwerke Oberdonau (German for ''Steel Works of Upper Danube'') was a large steel and iron producing company, a holding of several steel works in southern Germany. Created after the Anschluss of Austria, it formed the part of the so-called '' Rei ...
(the largest World War II steel supplier for the German
Panzer This article deals with the tanks (german: panzer) serving in the German Army (''Deutsches Heer'') throughout history, such as the World War I tanks of the Imperial German Army, the interwar and World War II tanks of the Nazi German Wehrmacht, ...
tanks) *
Flugmotorenwerke Ostmark The Flugmotorenwerke Ostmark (German for ''Aircraft Engine Factory Eastern March'') was a large German aircraft engine supplier during World War II, a part of the Steyr-Daimler-Puch cartel. It specialized in engines for the majority of aeroplanes ...
(aeroplane engine manufacturer) *
Nibelungenwerk The Nibelungenwerk (also known as the Nibelungenwerke or Ni-Werk) was the largest and most modern tank assembly factory in Nazi Germany, located near the Austrian town of St. Valentin. As the only German tank production facility which had a wel ...
(the largest tank factory in Nazi Germany) *
Otto Eberhard Patronenfabrik Otto Eberhardt Patronenfabrik (English: "Otto Eberhardt Cartridge Factory") was a munitions company established in 1860. The company's '' Hirtenberger Patronen, Zündhütchen und Metallwarenfabrik'' (English: "cartridge, primer and metalware fa ...
(munitions works) *
Heinkel Heinkel Flugzeugwerke () was a German aircraft manufacturing company founded by and named after Ernst Heinkel. It is noted for producing bomber aircraft for the Luftwaffe in World War II and for important contributions to high-speed flight, with ...
and
Messerschmitt Messerschmitt AG () was a German share-ownership limited, aircraft manufacturing corporation named after its chief designer Willy Messerschmitt from mid-July 1938 onwards, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, in partic ...
( ''Heinkel-Sud'' facilities in
Floridsdorf Floridsdorf (; Central Bavarian: ''Fluridsduaf'') is the 21st district of Vienna (german: 21. Bezirk, Floridsdorf), located in the northern part of the city and comprising seven formerly independent communities: Floridsdorf, Donaufeld, Greater Jed ...
, Vienna-Schwechat and
Zwölfaxing Zwölfaxing is a municipality in the district of Bruck an der Leitha in the Austrian state of Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, ...
, and other aeroplane factories, also a
V-2 rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed ...
factory) *
Österreichische Sauerwerks Several brother companies that design and manufacture firearms use the brand name SIG Sauer . The original company, ''Schweizerische Waggon-Fabrik'' (SWF), later ''Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft'' (SIG), went through several selloffs, ...
(arms producer) *
Rax-Werke Raxwerke or Rax-Werke was a facility of the Wiener Neustädter Lokomotivfabrik at Wiener Neustadt in Lower Austria. During World War II, the company also produced lamps for Panzer tanks and anti-aircraft guns. Two Raxwerke plants employed several ...
(machinery and V-2 rockets) *
Steyr-Daimler-Puch Steyr-Daimler-Puch () was a large manufacturing conglomerate based in Steyr, Austria, which was broken up in stages between 1987 and 2001. The component parts and operations continued to exist under separate ownership and new names. History T ...
(arms and vehicles) *
Hochtief Hochtief AG is a German construction company based in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.Loibl Pass The Loibl Pass (german: Loiblpass) or Ljubelj Pass ( sl, prelaz Ljubelj) is a high mountain pass in the Karawanks chain of the Southern Limestone Alps, linking Austria with Slovenia. The Loibl Pass road is the shortest connection between the Cari ...
) Prisoners were also rented out as slave labour to work on local farms, road construction, reinforcing and repairing the banks of the
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
, and the construction of large residential areas in Sankt Georgen as well as being forced to excavate archaeological sites in
Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
. 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 the hills surrounding the camp (code-named ''Kellerbau''). By the end of World War II the prisoners had dug 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 so the Messerschmitt company could build an assembly plant to produce the
Messerschmitt Me 262 The Messerschmitt Me 262, nicknamed ''Schwalbe'' (German: "Swallow") in fighter versions, or ''Sturmvogel'' (German: "Storm Bird") in fighter-bomber versions, is a fighter aircraft and fighter-bomber that was designed and produced by the Germa ...
and
V-2 rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed ...
s. In addition to planes, some 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, 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 Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour fr ...
, which was also underground.


Weapons research

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 the
German nuclear weapon project The Uranverein ( en, "Uranium Club") or Uranprojekt ( en, "Uranium Project") was the name given to the project in Nazi Germany, Germany to research nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, during World War II. It wen ...
. The panel indicated that stairs uncovered during an excavation prompted by the allegations led to an SS
shooting range A shooting range, firing range, gun range or shooting ground is a specialized facility, sports venue, venue or playing field, field designed specifically for firearm usage qualifications, training, practice or shooting sport, competitions. So ...
.


Extermination

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 a
gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. Histor ...
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 The Hartheim killing centre (german: NS-Tötungsanstalt Hartheim, sometimes translated as "Hartheim killing facility" or "Hartheim euthanasia centre") was a killing facility involved in the Nazi programme known as ''Aktion T4'', in which German ...
, which was away), or killed by lethal injection and cremated in the local
crematorium A crematorium or crematory is a venue for the cremation of the dead. Modern crematoria contain at least one cremator (also known as a crematory, retort or cremation chamber), a purpose-built furnace. In some countries a crematorium can also be ...
. The growing number of prisoners made this system too expensive and from 1940, Mauthausen 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 Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern German ...
and Gusen. It was capable of killing about 120 prisoners at a time when it was completed.


Inmates

Until early 1940, the largest group of inmates consisted of German, Austrian and Czechoslovak
socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
s,
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
s, homosexuals, anarchists and people of
Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
origin. Other groups of people to be persecuted solely on religious grounds were the ''Sectarians'', as they were dubbed by the Nazi regime, meaning Bible Students, or as they are called today,
Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
. 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 Boy Scouts may refer to: * Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement. * Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement. * An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are ...
, teachers, and university professors, who were arrested during ''Intelligenzaktion'' and the course of the
AB Action , location = Palmiry Forest and similar locations in occupied Poland , date = Spring–summer 1940 , incident_type = Mass murder with automatic weapons , perpetrators = Wehrmacht, '' Einsatzgruppen'' , participants = , ...
. 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 Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
were also transferred to Mauthausen and its subcamps. Most of them were former Republican soldiers or activists who had fled to France after
Franco Franco may refer to: Name * Franco (name) * Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Spanish general and dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975 * Franco Luambo (1938–1989), Congolese musician, the "Grand Maître" Prefix * Franco, a prefix used when ref ...
's victory and then were captured by German forces after the defeat of France in 1940 or handed over to the Germans by the
Vichy Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais. It is a Spa town, spa and resort town and in World ...
authorities. The largest of these groups arrived at Gusen in January 1941. 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 The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...
in 1941, the camps started to receive a large number of Soviet POWs. Most of them were kept in huts separated from 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 the hard labour and poor conditions, or were deliberately killed. After the Nazi
invasion of Yugoslavia The invasion of Yugoslavia, also known as the April War or Operation 25, or ''Projekt 25'' was a German-led attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II. The order for the invasion was p ...
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 Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
and
Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
. An estimated 1,500
Slovenes The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( sl, Slovenci ), are a South Slavic ethnic group native to Slovenia, and adjacent regions in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Slovenes share a common ancestry, culture, history and speak Slovene as their n ...
died in Mauthausen. Throughout 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 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 Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''
Hungarian Jews The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...
from Auschwitz; the first group to be evacuated from that camp before the Soviet advance. Initially, 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 Melk (; older spelling: ) is a city of Austria, in the federal state of Lower Austria, next to the Wachau valley along the Danube. Melk has a population of 5,257 (as of 2012). It is best known as the site of a massive baroque Benedictine monastery ...
. Over time, Auschwitz had to almost stop accepting new prisoners and most were directed to Mauthausen instead. The last group – roughly 10,000 prisoners – 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 The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occ ...
, 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 camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
s arrived at the camp complex. Many more perished from exhaustion during
death marches A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Conven ...
, 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 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, links=no) 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 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 a separate room inside most barracks. On Himmler's order of June 1941, a
brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...
was opened in the Mauthausen and Gusen I camps in 1942. The Kapos formed the main part of the so-called ''Prominents'' (german: Prominenz, links=no), or prisoners who were given a much better treatment than the average inmate.


Women and children in Mauthausen

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 Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
. Eventually, more women and children came to Mauthausen from Ravensbrück,
Bergen-Belsen Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentrati ...
, Gross-Rosen, and
Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
. Along with the female prisoners came some female guards; twenty are known to have served in the Mauthausen camp, and sixty in the whole camp complex. Female guards also staffed the Mauthausen subcamps at
Hirtenberg Hirtenberg is a town of approx. 2,500 inhabitants near Baden bei Wien in Lower Austria, Austria. The river Triesting is located at the south border of the town. Coming from the Vienna Woods, the valley of Triesting joins the Vienna Basin here. ...
,
Lenzing Lenzing is a small town of approximately 5,000 residents, three kilometers north of Lake Attersee in Austria, It is located in the Upper Austrian part of the Salzkammergut. Lenzing's economy is partly based on tourism, but the town is much more ...
(the main women's subcamp in Austria), and
Sankt Lambrecht Sankt Lambrecht is a market town in the district of Murau in Styria, Austria. It is known for St. Lambrecht's Abbey, one of the most important Benedictine monasteries in Austria. The monastery complex and its gardens are part of the Zirbitzkogel- ...
. The Chief Overseers at Mauthausen were firstly
Margarete Freinberger Margarete is a German feminine given name. It is derived from Ancient Greek ''margarites'' (μαργαρίτης), meaning "the pearl". Via the Latin ''margarita'', it arrived in the German sprachraum. Related names in English include Daisy, Gr ...
, and then
Jane Bernigau Gerda "Jane" Bernigau (5 October 1908 – 23 March 1992) was an '' SS Oberaufseherin'' in Nazi concentration camps before and during World War II. Camp work Bernigau was born on 5 October 1908, in Sagan, Germany (now Żagań, Poland). In 1938, sh ...
. 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 the female subcamps at Amstetten,
St. Lambrecht Sankt Lambrecht is a market town in the district of Murau in Styria, Austria. It is known for St. Lambrecht's Abbey, one of the most important Benedictine monasteries in Austria. The monastery complex and its gardens are part of the Zirbitzkogel-Gr ...
, Hirtenberg, and the Flossenbürg subcamp at
Freiberg Freiberg is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany. It is a so-called ''Große Kreisstadt'' (large county town) and the administrative centre of Mittelsachsen district. Its historic town centre has been placed under heritage c ...
. According to Daniel Patrick Brown,
Hildegard Lächert Hildegard Martha Lächert (19 March 1920 – 14 April 1995) was a female guard, or ''Female guards in Nazi concentration camps, Aufseherin'', at several concentration camps controlled by Nazi Germany. She became publicly known for her service ...
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 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 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.


Treatment of inmates and methodology of crime

Mauthausen was one of the most brutal and severe of the Nazi concentration camps. The inmates suffered not only from
malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...
, overcrowded huts and constant abuse and beatings by 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  – led to exceptionally high mortality rates. The food rations were limited, and during the 1940–1942 period, an average inmate weighed . It is estimated that the average energy content of food rations dropped from about a day during the 1940–1942 period, to between a day during the next period. In 1945 the energy content was even lower and did not exceed a day – less than a third of the energy needed by an average worker in
heavy industry Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...
. The reduced rations led to the starvation of thousands of inmates. 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 the ''hospital camp ''– as it was called by the German authorities – was, in fact, a "hospital" only in name. The rock quarry in Mauthausen was at the base of the "Stairs of Death". Prisoners were forced to carry roughly-hewn blocks of stone – often weighing as much as  – 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 A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect generated when a particular event triggers a chain of similar events. This term is best known as a mechanical effect and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically ...
; the first prisoner falling onto 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.Michael Jones (2015)
''After Hitler; The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe''
/ref> Such brutality was not accidental. Former prisoner
Edward Mosberg Edward Mosberg (January 6, 1926 – September 21, 2022) was a Polish-American Holocaust survivor, educator, and philanthropist. During the Holocaust, he was held by the Nazis from 14 years of age in Kraków Ghetto, Kraków-Płaszów concentratio ...
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 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, links=no). At gun-point 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 a means of
collective responsibility Collective responsibility, also known as collective guilt, refers to responsibilities of organizations, groups and societies. Collective responsibility in the form of collective punishment is often used as a disciplinary measure in closed insti ...
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 The volt (symbol: V) is the unit of electric potential, electric potential difference (voltage), and electromotive force in the International System of Units (SI). It is named after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827). Defi ...
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 Hypothermia is defined as a body core temperature below in humans. Symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia, there is shivering and mental confusion. In moderate hypothermia, shivering stops and confusion increases. In severe h ...
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 the prisoners. Among the doctors to organise them were
Sigbert Ramsauer Sigebert (which means roughly "magnificent victory"), also spelled Sigibert, Sigobert, Sigeberht, or Siegeberht, is the name of: Frankish and Anglo-Saxon kings * Sigobert the Lame (died c. 509), a king of the Franks * Sigebert I, King of Austrasi ...
,
Karl Josef Gross Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austrian ...
,
Eduard Krebsbach Eduard Krebsbach (8 August 1894 – 28 May 1947) was a former German physician and SS doctor in the Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen from July 1941 to August 1943. He was executed for atrocities committed at the Mauthausen camp. Concentra ...
and
Aribert Heim Aribert Ferdinand Heim (28 June 191410 August 1992), also known as Dr. Death and Butcher of Mauthausen, was an Austrian ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) doctor. During World War II, he served at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Mauthausen, killin ...
. 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 Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...
of newly arrived prisoners in Gusen varied from six months between 1940 and 1942, to less than three months in early 1945. Paradoxically, with 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 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 Nazi war crime
Mühlviertler Hasenjagd The Mühlviertler Hasenjagd () was a war crime in which 500 Soviet officers, who had revolted and escaped from the Mühlviertel subcamp of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp on 2 February 1945, were hunted down. Local civilians, soldiers and ...
("hare hunt") where around 500 escaped prisoners (mostly Soviet officers) were mercilessly hunted down and murdered by SS, local law enforcement and civilians.


Death toll

The Germans destroyed much of 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, away. Also, several thousands were killed in mobile gas chambers, without any mention of the exact number of victims in the remaining files. Overall, more than 90,000 of the 190,000 people deported to Mauthausen died there or in one of its subcamps.


Staff

SS Captain
Albert Sauer Albert Sauer (17 August 1898, Misdroy – 3 May 1945, Falkensee) was a German commandant of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Life Sauer, a carpenter by trade, became a member of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) and the SS in 1931. After a period of ...
presided over the initial establishment of the camp on 1 August 1938 and remained camp commandant until 17 February 1939.
Franz Ziereis Franz Xaver Ziereis (13 August 1905 – 24 May 1945) was the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp from 1939 until the camp was liberated by the American forces in 1945. Early life and SS career Ziereis was born on 13 August 1905 in M ...
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 ''SS-Totenkopfverbände'' (SS-TV; ) was the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps for Nazi Germany, among similar duties. While the ''Totenkopf'' was the univer ...
charged with guarding the camp perimeter in addition to work detachments was headed by
Georg Bachmayer Georg Bachmayer (12 August 1913 – 8 May 1945) was an SS-''Hauptsturmführer'' (captain) and member of the '' SS-Totenkopfverbände'' who served as the ''Schutzhaftlagerführer'', with responsibility for prisoners while they were inside the Ma ...
, a captain in the SS. Further records of camp leadership were destroyed by
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
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 The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; literal translation, lit. 'the North') are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmar ...
, according to senior researcher Terje Emberland at the Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities.


Liberation and postwar heritage

During the final months before liberation, the camp's commander
Franz Ziereis Franz Xaver Ziereis (13 August 1905 – 24 May 1945) was the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp from 1939 until the camp was liberated by the American forces in 1945. Early life and SS career Ziereis was born on 13 August 1905 in M ...
prepared for its defence against a possible Soviet offensive. The remaining prisoners were rushed to build a line of granite anti-tank obstacles to the east of Mauthausen. The inmates unable to cope with the hard labour and malnutrition were exterminated in large numbers to free space for newly arrived evacuation transports from other camps, including most of the subcamps of Mauthausen located in eastern Austria. In the final months of the war, the main source of dietary energy, the parcels of food sent through the International Red Cross, stopped and food rations became catastrophically low. The prisoners transferred to the "Hospital Subcamp" received one piece of bread per 20 inmates and roughly half a litre of weed soup a day. This made some of the prisoners, previously engaged in various types of resistance activity, begin to prepare plans to defend the camp in case of an SS attempt to exterminate all the remaining inmates. On 3 May the SS and other guards started to prepare for evacuation of the camp. The following day, the guards of Mauthausen were replaced with unarmed ''
Volkssturm The (; "people's storm") was a levée en masse national militia established by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II. It was not set up by the German Army, the ground component of the combined German ''Wehrmacht'' armed forces, ...
'' soldiers and an improvised unit formed of elderly police officers and fire fighters evacuated from Vienna. The police officer in charge of the unit accepted the "inmate self-government" as the camp's highest authority and
Martin Gerken Martin Gerken was a German communist and one of the highest-ranking Kapos in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Au ...
, until then the highest-ranking kapo prisoner in the Gusen's administration (in the rank of ''Lagerälteste'', or the ''Camp's Elder''), became the new ''de facto'' commander. He attempted to create an International Prisoner Committee that would become a provisional governing body of the camp until it was liberated by one of the approaching armies, but he was openly accused of co-operation with the SS and the plan failed. All work in the subcamps of Mauthausen stopped and the inmates focused on preparations for their liberation – or defence of the camps against a possible assault by the SS divisions concentrated in the area. The remnants of several German divisions indeed assaulted the Mauthausen subcamp, but were repelled by the prisoners who took over the camp. Of the main subcamps of Mauthausen, only Gusen III was to be evacuated. On 1 May the inmates were rushed on a
death march A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convent ...
towards Sankt Georgen, but were ordered to return to the camp after several hours. The operation was repeated the following day, but called off soon afterwards. The following day, the SS guards deserted the camp, leaving the prisoners to their fate. On 5 May 1945 the camp at Mauthausen was approached by a squad of US Army soldiers of the 41st Reconnaissance Squadron of the
US 11th Armored Division The 11th Armored Division (11 AD) was a division of the United States Army in World War II. It was activated on 15 August 1942 at Camp Polk, Louisiana and moved on 24 June 1943 for the Louisiana Maneuvers. Transferred then to Camp Barkeley, ...
, 3rd US Army. The reconnaissance squad was led by Staff Sergeant Albert J. Kosiek. His troop disarmed the policemen and left the camp. By the time of its liberation, most of the guards in Mauthausen had fled; around 30 of those who remained were killed by the prisoners. A similar number were killed in Gusen II. By 6 May all the remaining subcamps of Mauthausen, with the exception of the two camps in the Loibl Pass, were also liberated by American forces. Among the inmates liberated from the camp was Lieutenant Jack Taylor, an officer of the
Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...
. He had managed to survive with the help of several prisoners and was later a key witness at the
Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials The Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials were a set of trials of SS concentration camp personnel following World War II, heard by an American military government court at Dachau. Between March 29 and May 13, 1946, and then from August 6 to August 21, 1947, ...
carried out by the Dachau International Military Tribunal. Another of the camp's survivors was
Simon Wiesenthal Simon Wiesenthal (31 December 190820 September 2005) was a history of the Jews in Austria, Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. He studied architecture and was living in Lwów at the outbreak of World War II. He surviv ...
, an engineer who spent the rest of his life hunting
Nazi war criminal The following is a list of people who were formally indicted for committing war crimes on behalf of the Axis powers during World War II, including those who were acquitted or never received judgment. It does not include people who may have commi ...
s. Future
Medal of Honor The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor. ...
recipient Tibor "Ted" Rubin was imprisoned there as a young teenager; a Hungarian Jew, he vowed to join the US Army upon his liberation and later did just that, distinguishing himself in the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
as a corporal in the
8th Cavalry Regiment The 8th Cavalry Regiment is a regiment of the United States Army formed in 1866 during the American Indian Wars. The 8th Cavalry continued to serve under a number of designations, fighting in every other major U.S. conflict since, except Worl ...
, 1st Cavalry Division. Francesc Boix, a photographer and veteran of the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
, was imprisoned at the camp for four years. During his time working in the photography lab of the camp, he smuggled 3,000 negatives out of the camp and later used this photographic evidence to testify at the Nuremberg trials. Following the capitulation of Germany, Mauthausen fell within the Allied-administered Austria, Soviet sector of occupation of Austria. Initially, the Soviet authorities used parts of the Mauthausen and Gusen I camps as barracks for the Red Army. At the same time, the underground factories were being dismantled and sent to the USSR as a war reparations. After that, between 1946 and 1947, the camps were unguarded and many furnishings and facilities of the camp were dismantled, both by the Red Army and by the local population. In the early summer of 1947, the Soviet forces had blown up the tunnels and were then withdrawn from the area, while the camp was turned over to Austrian civilian authorities.


Memorials

Mauthausen was declared a national memorial site in 1949. Bruno Kreisky, the Chancellor of Austria, officially opened the Mauthausen Museum on 3 May 1975, 30 years after the camp's liberation. A visitor centre was inaugurated in 2003, designed by the architects Herwig Mayer, Christoph Schwarz, and Karl Peyrer-Heimstätt, covering an area of . The Mauthausen site remains largely intact, but much of what constituted the subcamps of Gusen I, II and III is now covered by residential areas built after the war. A memorial to Mauthausen stands amongst the various memorials to concentration camps in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.


Documentaries and films

*''The Quality of Mercy (film), The Quality of Mercy'' (1994). Austrian film written, directed and produced by Andreas Gruber.
''Mauthausen–Gusen: La memòria''
(2009) (in Valencian) by :ca:Rosa Brines i Sirerol, Rosa Brines. An 18-minute documentary about the republican Spaniards deported to Mauthausen and Gusen. It includes testimonies from survivors. *''The Photographer of Mauthausen'' (2018). Based on real events, Francisco Boix is a Spaniard inmate in the Austrian concentration camp of Mauthausen who tries to save the evidences of the horrors committed inside its walls.
''Les Résitants de Mauthausen = Resistance at Mauthausen''
(2021) A 51-minute documentary by Barbara Necek about the resistance by republican Spanish prisoners, focusing particularly on Francisco Boix who preserved thousands of photographs of conditions inside the camp.


See also

* Amicale de Mauthausen * Camp de concentration d'Argelès-sur-Mer *
Eisenwerke Oberdonau Eisenwerke Oberdonau (German for ''Steel Works of Upper Danube'') was a large steel and iron producing company, a holding of several steel works in southern Germany. Created after the Anschluss of Austria, it formed the part of the so-called '' Rei ...
* Auschwitz concentration camp *
Flugmotorenwerke Ostmark The Flugmotorenwerke Ostmark (German for ''Aircraft Engine Factory Eastern March'') was a large German aircraft engine supplier during World War II, a part of the Steyr-Daimler-Puch cartel. It specialized in engines for the majority of aeroplanes ...
* Granitwerke Mauthausen * Mauthausen Trilogy *
Mühlviertler Hasenjagd The Mühlviertler Hasenjagd () was a war crime in which 500 Soviet officers, who had revolted and escaped from the Mühlviertel subcamp of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp on 2 February 1945, were hunted down. Local civilians, soldiers and ...
* Steyr-Münichholz subcamp * Loibl Pass#Loibl Tunnel, Ljubelj subcamp * List of Nazi concentration camps


References


Footnotes


Citations


Bibliography

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Further reading

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External links


USHMM
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum contains more than 500 pictures of Mauthausen–Gusen
Interviews with American servicemen imprisoned at Mauthausen

Online exhibition of the Polish History Museum on the former KZ Gusen complex

Mauthausen Memorial
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp Nazi concentration camps in Austria Amstetten, Lower Austria Amstetten District 1938 establishments in Germany 1945 disestablishments in Germany Buildings and structures in Upper Austria Museums in Upper Austria World War II museums History museums in Austria Military and war museums in Austria Monuments and memorials in Austria Messerschmitt Mauthausen concentration camp, Holocaust locations in Austria