German Concentration Camps In Austria: Fact Or Fiction?

The Mauthausen concentration camp was established in Austria in 1938, shortly after the country was annexed to Nazi Germany. It was one of the most brutal and deadly camps in the Nazi concentration camp system, with a reputation for lethality even among its peers.

Mauthausen was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The camp was built near abandoned stone quarries along the Danube River and was used to provide slave labour for the German war effort. Prisoners were subjected to forced labour in harsh conditions, with many dying from starvation, disease, and the hardships of labour.

The camp was liberated by the United States Army in May 1945, with surviving prisoners in a weakened state, many of whom died in the days and weeks following their liberation.

The Mauthausen concentration camp

Mauthausen was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The camp system was established by the SS, with the first prisoners transferred from the Dachau concentration camp in August 1938. During this initial phase, the prisoners, who were all German and Austrian men, were forced to build their own camp and set up operations in the nearby granite quarry.

Mauthausen initially 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 quarries and other industries, including munitions factories, mines, arms factories, and aircraft assembly plants. The conditions at Mauthausen were exceptionally harsh and brutal, with inmates suffering from malnutrition, overcrowding, constant abuse, and exceptionally hard labour.

During World War II, the number and diversity of prisoners at Mauthausen increased dramatically. People from across Europe, including political opponents, religious conscientious objectors, and various "unwanted" groups, were deported to the camp. The SS also transported thousands of prisoners to Mauthausen specifically to be murdered without being registered as prisoners. The camp authorities used several methods of killing, including gas chambers, lethal injections, shootings, hangings, and harsh living conditions.

By 1944, Mauthausen had become a detention centre for anti-Nazis from all over Europe, including 10,000 Spanish Republicans. In November 1941, Soviet prisoners of war began arriving, and the first Jews arrived in May 1941. While Jews were a small minority in the camp until 1944, their numbers increased significantly that year with the arrival of Jews from Poland and Hungary.

The total number of prisoners who passed through the Mauthausen camp system is estimated to be around 190,000 to 200,000, with at least 90,000 to 95,000 deaths. The liberation of the camp occurred on May 5, 1945, by the United States Army. By the time of its liberation, most of the guards had fled, and some of those who remained were killed by the prisoners.

The Gusen concentration camp

Gusen was initially a labour camp, with prisoners working in the quarries, and was a sub-camp of Mauthausen. However, its primary purpose was the extermination of real and perceived enemies of Nazi Germany through forced labour. The camp was run with incredible brutality, with inmates suffering from malnutrition, overcrowding, constant abuse, and exceptionally hard labour. The SS and Kapos (prisoners recruited to police their fellow inmates) beat, tortured, and murdered prisoners, and those who were too sick to work were sent to be exterminated at other camps.

During the war, Gusen's purpose shifted to armaments production, with Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG and Messerschmitt GmbH moving their production to the camp. This shift led to an increase in the number of prisoners, with Gusen's population reaching 26,311 in February 1945. The increased demand for labour also led to the establishment of two additional sub-camps, Gusen II and Gusen III, in 1944.

The death toll at Gusen was incredibly high, with estimates placing the number of deaths at over 35,000 out of a total of over 60,000 registered prisoners. The conditions at the camp were so harsh that the average life expectancy of prisoners was as low as six months, and the average weight of prisoners was just 40 kilograms.

On May 5, 1945, the Gusen concentration camp was liberated by the United States 11th Armored Division. In the chaos of liberation, several former Kapos were killed by surviving inmates. Today, the site of the camp has been redeveloped into a privately-owned village, with a small museum run by the Austrian government.

The Ebensee concentration camp

The conditions at Ebensee were poor and harsh. The prisoners were forced to work 11-hour shifts, digging tunnels and performing other strenuous labour. The food rations were insufficient, consisting of coffee for breakfast, hot water with spoiled potatoes for lunch, and a piece of bread with water for dinner. The barracks were unheated, and there were no baths, resulting in lice infestations. Many prisoners died from hunger, malnutrition, exposure to cold weather, and the harsh labour conditions. The death toll at Ebensee is estimated to be between 8,500 and 11,000.

In May 1945, as Allied forces closed in on Nazi territories, the SS guards fled the camp, and American troops from the 80th Infantry Division, under the command of General Omar Bradley, liberated Ebensee. Upon liberation, the prisoners were emaciated and starving, and hundreds continued to die in the following weeks due to the effects of imprisonment.

Today, residential homes exist on the site of the former camp, and a memorial cemetery is located nearby. A memorial tunnel and the Museum for Contemporary History Ebensee provide information and exhibits about the camp's history.

The Melk concentration camp

Yes, there were German concentration camps in Austria. One of the most notorious was Mauthausen, which was established in 1938 after the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany. Mauthausen was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. One of these subcamps was Melk.

The inmates of Melk were of all nationalities, with no single nationality being dominant. There were Poles, Hungarians, Yugoslavs, French, Italians, Czechs, Germans, Greeks, Soviets, and more. Around 30% of the prisoners were Jewish. The camp was run by Obersturmbannführer Julius Ludolf and had fewer than 10 SS members, with the remaining guards consisting of around 500 Luftwaffe soldiers.

The company Quarz GmbH, a subsidiary of the armaments company Steyr-Daimler-Puch (SDP), employed the prisoners. They worked on excavating caverns in the surrounding hills to be used as sites for the production of ball bearings, as well as producing armaments and working on construction projects. The conditions were brutal, and many prisoners died. Between December 1944 and April 1945, more than 3,500 deceased prisoners were cremated in the camp crematorium. The camp doctor, Dr. Josef Sora, had close connections with the prisoners and boycotted orders to allow prisoners to starve to death.

In April 1945, production ceased as a result of the advance of Soviet troops. The remaining prisoners were evacuated to Ebensee, Mauthausen, and Gusen. The camp was liberated by US troops on May 5, 1945, with the final prisoner count showing a population of over 14,000.

The Amstetten concentration camp

In March 1945, several hundred female prisoners at Amstetten refused to return to the camp after it was bombed by the Allies, despite threats from the Protective Detention Camp Commandant Georg Bachmayer. This was the first and only case of a mass refusal to deploy to work.

The Mauthausen camp system was one of the most brutal and severe of the Nazi concentration camps. Inmates suffered from malnutrition, overcrowded huts, and constant abuse and beatings by the guards and kapos (prisoners recruited to police their fellow prisoners). They were also forced to work in nearby stone quarries, where they carried heavy stone blocks up 186 steps known as the "Stairway of Death" or "Stairs of Death". The harsh conditions and hard labour led to a high mortality rate, with an estimated 95,000 deaths out of 197,464 prisoners across the entire camp system.

The Amstetten subcamp was liberated by American forces in May 1945, along with the main camp at Mauthausen and most of its other subcamps.

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