Austria's Dark History: Concentration Camps And Complicity

Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in March 1938, and the country soon became home to several concentration camps and sub-camps. One of the most notorious was Mauthausen, located near Linz, which served as the main camp for a group of nearly 100 sub-camps throughout Austria and southern Germany. The camp was established in 1938 and was liberated by American forces in 1945. During this time, it is estimated that 120,000 of the 200,000 prisoners who passed through Mauthausen died, mainly from starvation, disease, and forced labour.

Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp located on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of Linz in Upper Austria. It was established in 1938, several months after the German annexation of Austria, and was liberated by the United States Army in 1945.

Mauthausen was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The three Gusen concentration camps, located just a few kilometres from Mauthausen, often held a greater number of prisoners than the main camp. The Gusen camps were established in 1939 and became operational in 1940.

Mauthausen was built near an abandoned stone quarry, chosen for its proximity to Linz. The site was chosen by the National Socialist Gauleiter (regional head) of Upper Austria, August Eigruber, who announced that his Gau would have the "distinction" of building a concentration camp. The camp was controlled by the German state from the beginning, but it was founded by a private company, Deutsche Erd– und Steinwerke GmbH (DEST), as an economic enterprise. The company was led by Oswald Pohl, a high-ranking official of the Schutzstaffel (SS).

Initially, Mauthausen served as a strictly-run prison camp for common criminals, prostitutes, and other categories of "Incorrigible Law Offenders". In May 1939, it was converted into a labour camp for political prisoners. The camp provided slave labour for the nearby stone quarries, and conditions were brutal and severe. Prisoners were subjected to constant abuse, beatings, malnutrition, and exceptionally hard labour. They were forced to carry large blocks of stone up a long staircase known as the "Stairs of Death", which led to exceptionally high mortality rates.

During World War II, Mauthausen received prisoners from across Europe, including Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. The camp was used for the imprisonment and murder of the Nazis' political and ideological enemies, including socialists, communists, homosexuals, anarchists, and people of Romani origin. It also held prisoners of war, particularly Soviet POWs.

In 1941, the SS began constructing a gas chamber at Mauthausen for the systematic murder of large groups of people. The camp was designated a category III camp, indicating it was a special penal camp with a harsh regimen. The camp authorities also performed pseudo-scientific experiments on the prisoners.

By the end of the war, Mauthausen had become severely overcrowded, and the living conditions deteriorated further. Thousands of prisoners died from starvation, disease, and the harsh labour conditions. It is estimated that out of approximately 190,000 people imprisoned in Mauthausen and its subcamps, at least 90,000 died, including more than 14,000 Jews.

Mauthausen was one of the first massive concentration camp complexes in Nazi Germany and was the last to be liberated by the Allies. Today, the main camp is a museum and has been declared a national memorial site.

Gusen Concentration Camp

Gusen was a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp, located between the villages of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and Langenstein in Upper Austria. The Gusen site was chosen due to its proximity to the Gusen and Kastenhof stone quarries, which were leased by the SS enterprise Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke (DEST).

Gusen was established in late 1939, with the first prisoners—a work detail of 10 to 12 German and Austrian prisoners—arriving in December of that year. The camp was built to increase the productivity of workers at the quarry, who otherwise had to walk from the Mauthausen main camp, reducing their productive hours. The number of prisoners on the detail soon increased to 400, and by March 1940, Polish prisoners were included.

Gusen officially opened on 25 May 1940, with the first prisoners and guards moving in. The camp was adjacent to the road between Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and Langenstein, and until the camp wall was completed, passersby could see inside. Gusen was initially designated as a "reeducation camp" for Polish members of the intelligentsia, and the first transport of Polish prisoners arrived on the day the camp opened.

Conditions at Gusen were harsh and even worse than at the Mauthausen main camp. The camp's purpose was the extermination through labour of real and perceived enemies of Nazi Germany, and the life expectancy of prisoners was as short as six months. Prisoners faced starvation rations, forced labour, and beatings by guards and kapos, and were denied basic sanitary facilities. The camp's capacity of 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners was soon exceeded, and the population was maintained at around 6,000 to 7,000 until 1943 despite the high death rate.

In addition to German, Austrian, and Polish prisoners, Gusen also held Spanish Republicans, Soviet citizens, Italians, and others. The SS incarcerated approximately 4,000 Spanish Republicans, who had fled to France from the Franco regime in 1939 and were turned over to the Germans by the Vichy authorities in 1940. Nearly three-quarters of these prisoners died in the first year at Gusen. Gusen also held around 4,400 Soviet prisoners of war, with fewer than 500 still alive by early 1943.

In 1943, the SS began to use Gusen prisoners in armaments production, with Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG and Messerschmitt AG relocating their production to the camp. This led to some improvements in conditions, with increased rations and the allowance of food and medicine packages from outside. However, the increased focus on armaments production also led to a need for more prisoners, and the population of Gusen grew. Two additional camps, Gusen II and Gusen III, were built to accommodate this influx.

By the end of the war, more than 35,000 people had died at Gusen out of a total of over 60,000 registered prisoners. The camp was liberated by the United States 11th Armored Division on 5 May 1945.

Ebensee Concentration Camp

Ebensee was a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp, established by the SS in 1943 to build tunnels for armaments storage near the town of Ebensee, Austria. The camp held a total of 27,278 male inmates from 1943 to 1945, with prisoners from over 20 different countries, including Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Germany, Yugoslavia, France, Italy, Greece, and Spain. Jews formed about a third of the inmates, and most prisoners were political prisoners.

The construction of the Ebensee subcamp began in late 1943, and the first prisoners arrived on November 18, 1943, from the main camp of Mauthausen and its other subcamps. The main purpose of Ebensee was to provide slave labour for the construction of enormous tunnels to house armament works, protecting them from bombing. The SS used several codenames, including Kalk (limestone), Kalksteinbergwerk (limestone mine), Solvay, and Zement (cement), to conceal the true nature of the camp.

Prisoners worked long hours in harsh conditions, with 11-hour shifts being common. The camp was infested with lice, and the prisoners suffered from the lack of food and exposure to cold weather. Food rations were meagre and inadequate, consisting of coffee for breakfast, hot water with spoiled potatoes for lunch, and a piece of bread with water for dinner. The death toll was high, with between 8,500 and 11,000 prisoners dying in the camp, most from hunger or malnutrition.

As the war drew to a close and Allied forces closed in on Nazi territories, prisoners from other camps were sent to Ebensee, exacerbating the food shortage. In May 1945, just before liberation, almost half of the prisoners were officially ill. On May 6, 1945, American troops of the 80th Infantry Division liberated the camp, finding prisoners who were starving and barely clothed. They reported that 300 prisoners were dying of starvation every day and took photographs to document the conditions.

In the aftermath of liberation, survivors established a cemetery for prisoners who died in the camp outside of Ebensee. The cemetery was later relocated to a site nearer to the former location of the concentration camp, and about 4,000 victims are buried there. Residential homes were built on the site of the camp, and a Museum for Contemporary History Ebensee was opened in 2001 to provide information about the camp to visitors.

Melk Concentration Camp

Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938, and the Mauthausen concentration camp was established shortly after. Mauthausen was the main Nazi camp in Austria, with nearly 100 subcamps located throughout the country and into southern Germany. Melk was one of these subcamps, established in January 1944, and was located about 100km east of Linz.

The Melk concentration camp was built within the bounds of a large Wehrmacht garrison, exposing it to passing soldiers and civilians. The camp was established in the abandoned Wehrmacht Freiherr-von-Birago pioneer barracks in the lower Austrian city of Melk. The camp was better equipped than most concentration camps, but this changed due to overcrowding and poor hygiene. The average number of prisoners in Melk was about 8,000, but the camp still had its own gas chamber and crematorium. The crematorium was a tall, obvious landmark, and its design was an improvement on those of other camps. The gas chamber was also well-built and planned, with double brick walls and tiled inner walls.

The inmates of Melk were of all nationalities, including Poles, Hungarians, Yugoslavs, French, Italians, Greeks, Soviets, Germans, and many others. Around 30% were Jewish. The camp was used for forced labour, with prisoners working on tunneling projects in the surrounding hills, which consisted of fine sand and quartz. Many prisoners were buried alive beneath cave-ins.

The camp was liberated by US troops on May 5, 1945. The final prisoner count showed a population of over 14,000, with the dead and dying scattered across the camp grounds.

St. Pantaleon-Weyer Concentration Camp

Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, and the country subsequently became home to several concentration camps. One of these was the St. Pantaleon-Weyer concentration camp, a former National Socialist detention camp in the municipal area of St. Pantaleon, today known as Haigermoos, in Upper Austria.

The St. Pantaleon-Weyer camp existed as a Labour Education Camp from July 1940 until the beginning of 1941. It was then converted into a Gypsy Detention Camp and used as such until November of the same year. The camp was situated in Weyer, a part of the municipality of Haigermoos, which belonged to the municipality of Sankt Pantaleon until 1945.

During its time as a Labour Education Camp, the St. Pantaleon-Weyer camp was housed in the inn Göschl in Moosach in the parish of Sankt Georgen bei Salzburg. The prisoners were deployed in the regulation of the river Moosach. The camp was run by the Gaufürsorgeverband, an organisation that provided the property of the landlord Geratsdorfer in Weyer as a sublease. The Ortsgruppenleiter, the landlord and agriculturalist Michael Kaltenegger, was also involved in the camp's operations.

The purpose of the Labour Education Camp was described in letters from the Gauleiter August Eigruber and the Nazi appointee Kubinger as a place for "fellow citizens" who refused work, skipped work, caused disturbances at the worksite, or refused to take up work despite being physically fit. The camp also included "anti-social" managing directors, but it did not cover cases of a criminal nature or serious invalids, as hard physical labour was required.

Despite the stated purpose, it is proven that not only "anti-socials" were admitted to the camp. For example, Karl Grumpelmaier from Mauthausen, the manager of a large woodworking business, was sent to the camp because he refused to purchase a banner of the German Labour Front. The camp also admitted teenagers under the age of 18, which was against the stated guidelines.

The violence of the SA, who were in charge of the camp, became more and more prominent as the camp existed. The first person to die in the camp was Johann Gabauer from Julbach, who was left lying next to his fellow workers with fatal injuries. Numerous other inmates were severely injured and admitted to surrounding hospitals. After the death of Joseph Mayer, the camp physician, Alois Staufer, presented the circumstances of the case to the local court, Wildshut, which led to a year-and-a-half-long struggle concerning arraignment against the superintendent, camp management, and important Nazi figures.

In January 1941, after the closing of the Labour Education Camp, the district authorities detained more than 350 Austrian Sinti and Romanies in Weyer. The camp was now called the "Gypsy Detention Camp" and was similar to the camp Lackenbach in Burgenland, established at the same time. The staff was replaced by a gendarmerie leader and ten police reservists, while an officer of the criminal investigation department in Linz was appointed camp commander.

The prisoners in the St. Pantaleon Gypsy Detention Camp were meant to continue with the drainage and regulation activities, but more than half of the detainees were women and children. The camp commander or administrator assumed the duty of reporting deaths, and the mentioned causes of death were often strange, such as "life-weakness" or "heart failure" in children and "Herzfleischentartung" in an elderly lady. The dead bodies of the Sinti were, according to consistent testimonies of contemporary witnesses, deposited between shovels and pots in the gravedigger's cell at the cemetery Haigermoos and then buried during the night without discernible gravesites.

The St. Pantaleon-Weyer Gypsy Detention Camp was closed down on November 4, 1941. The inmates were loaded into cattle cars and brought, together with 4,700 other people, to the Gypsy Camp of the Ghetto Litzmannstadt in Łódź, Poland. None of them ever returned.

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