Prison Camps In Austria: Were They Real?

Yes, there were prison camps in Austria during World War I and World War II. During World War I, 2,940 German and Austrian men were interned in ten different camps in Australia. During World War II, several concentration camps were maintained and controlled by Nazi Germany throughout its territories, including Austria. The Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex in Austria was one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps.

Mauthausen Concentration Camp

The Mauthausen Concentration Camp was established in 1938, shortly after the German annexation of Austria. The camp was located near an abandoned stone quarry, along the Danube River, about 12.5 miles southeast of Linz.

Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp, and the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The camp was built by prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp, who were forced to construct their own camp and set up operations in the quarry.

The Mauthausen camp was chosen to incarcerate "traitors to the people from all over Austria", including political opponents and groups of people labelled as "criminal" or "antisocial". The camp was also used to hold common criminals, prostitutes, and other categories of "incorrigible law offenders". In May 1939, it was converted to a labour camp for political prisoners.

The conditions in the camp were brutal and severe. Prisoners suffered from malnutrition, overcrowding, constant abuse and beatings by guards, and exceptionally hard labour. They were forced to carry 11-pound blocks of stone up the "Stairs of Death", a 186-step stairway, resulting in many deaths. Other methods of extermination included shooting, throwing prisoners onto electric barbed wire fences, hanging, and deliberate starvation.

The number of deaths at the camp is unknown, but several sources place it between 122,000 and 320,0000 people for the whole Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex. The camp was liberated by the US Army in May 1945.

Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp Complex

The Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp Complex was established in 1938, after the German annexation of Austria. Mauthausen was the main camp, with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The camp was built near an abandoned stone quarry, along the Danube River, about 12.5 miles southeast of Linz.

The Mauthausen-Gusen complex was one of the first massive concentration camp complexes in Nazi Germany, and the last to be liberated by the Allies. The camp was established to incarcerate "traitors to the people from all over Austria", including political opponents and groups of people labelled as 'criminal' or 'antisocial'. The first prisoners, who were all German and Austrian men, were transferred from the Dachau concentration camp. They were forced to build their own camp and set up operations in the quarry, enduring hunger, arbitrary treatment and violence.

In December 1939, the construction of a second concentration camp, Gusen, began just a few kilometres from Mauthausen. Gusen officially opened in May 1940. Mauthausen and Gusen were the concentration camps with the harshest imprisonment conditions and the highest mortality rates. Prisoners were subjected to forced labour in the quarries, arms industry, and underground factories. They suffered from malnutrition, overcrowding, and constant abuse and beatings by the guards. Those who were ill or deemed 'useless' to the SS were in constant danger of their lives.

The Mauthausen-Gusen complex also included a gas chamber for the systematic murder of large groups of people. The number of deaths at the camp complex is unknown, but several sources place it between 122,000 and 320,000 people.

The Mauthausen main camp is now a museum.

The Holocaust in Austria

Austria was incorporated into Germany on 13 March 1938, the day after German troops entered the country. The annexation, known as the Anschluss, was approved in a plebiscite that was manipulated to indicate that about 99% of the Austrian people wanted the union. Jews and Roma were not allowed to vote.

Before the Anschluss, Jews played an important role in Austria's economic and cultural life. In 1938, Austria had a Jewish population of about 192,000, representing almost 4% of the total population. By December 1939, this number had been reduced to just 57,000, primarily due to emigration.

The Mauthausen concentration camp was established in the summer of 1938, after the German incorporation of Austria. Mauthausen became the main Nazi camp in Austria. It was built near an abandoned stone quarry, about 12 miles southeast of Linz. Mauthausen was designated a category III camp, indicating that it was a special penal camp with a harsh regime.

During the war, forced labour using concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important to German armaments production. In the summer and fall of 1944, subcamps under the administration of Mauthausen were established near armaments factories throughout northern Austria. The staff at Mauthausen administered more than 60 subcamps, including Gusen, Gunskirchen, Melk, Ebensee, and Amstetten. Thousands of prisoners were worked to death.

In addition to Mauthausen and its subcamps, other camps in Austria extended from Lochau in the west to Strasshof in the east. The Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex had one of the most severe and brutal regimes. The conditions within the camps were unbearable. The prisoners suffered from malnutrition, beating, overcrowding, and very hard labour. Mauthausen was the last Nazi Germany concentration camp to be liberated by the Allies.

The first Jews arrived at Mauthausen in May 1941, but Jews were a small minority of the camp prisoners until 1944, when Jews from Poland and Hungary greatly increased the camp population. Mauthausen also had a gas chamber and gas vans, and from April 1944 to January 1945, the gas chambers at nearby Hartheim Castle were also used to kill prisoners.

Mauthausen was one of the first massive concentration camp complexes in Nazi Germany, and the last to be liberated by the Allies. Of a total of around 190,000 people imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp and its subcamps over seven years, at least 90,000 died.

Nazi Annexation of Austria

The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, known as the Anschluss, was the first act of territorial aggression and expansion by the Nazi regime. It took place over three days, from March 11 to March 13, 1938.

In the years leading up to the Anschluss, Austria was a country of approximately 6.5 million people, most of whom considered themselves ethnically German. During this time, millions of people with German heritage lived outside of Germany, including in Austria and other countries that had previously been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In the 1920s, many Austrians did not believe their country could survive economically without the territories previously held by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Some Austrians hoped to restore a form of the empire, while others wanted Austria to unite with Germany. The idea of uniting Austria and Germany was not new, with discussions and debates about Austria's role in a German nation-state dating back to the 19th century.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party shared this desire to unite all Germans in a Greater Germany. The first point of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform stated:

> "We demand the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany (Großdeutschland) on the basis of the right of national self-determination."

Hitler's autobiography and political treatise, Mein Kampf, also began with his vision for the future relationship between Austria and Germany:

> "The reunification [of Germany and Austria] is a life task to be carried out by all means! German-Austria must be restored to the great German Motherland… People of the same blood should be in the same REICH."

Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933 and began planning territorial expansion and European war. In Austria, the Austrian Nazi Party gained supporters as Hitler's popularity in Germany grew.

In 1933, Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss transformed Austria into a right-wing authoritarian regime, known as the Corporate State or Austrofascist state. Dollfuss's government was diplomatically aligned with Fascist Italy and authoritarian Hungary, and he was committed to crushing the political left in Austria.

Beginning in May 1933, Austrian Nazis, encouraged and funded by Germany, waged a propaganda and terror campaign to undermine the Dollfuss regime. They staged disruptive protests, brawls, and set off explosives and tear gas bombs in public places and Jewish-owned businesses. In response, the Dollfuss regime banned the Austrian Nazi Party in June 1933, making the movement illegal in Austria.

However, Austrian Nazis continued to operate underground, and thousands fled to Germany, where they formed a paramilitary unit known as the Austrian Legion. In July 1934, Austrian Nazis attempted a coup, assassinating Dollfuss. The coup failed, and Mussolini sent troops to the Austro-Italian border to defend Austrian sovereignty.

After Dollfuss's death, Kurt von Schuschnigg became Austrian chancellor. In March 1938, Schuschnigg called a plebiscite (referendum) to resolve the question of the Anschluss once and for all. However, before the plebiscite could take place, Schuschnigg gave in to pressure from Hitler and resigned on March 11, pleading with Austrian forces not to resist a German "advance" into the country.

On March 12, 1938, German troops entered Austria, where they were met with enthusiastic crowds. Hitler appointed a new Nazi government, and on March 13, the annexation was proclaimed. Austria became a federal state of Germany, and the process of Nazification began. Austrian civil servants, soldiers, and police officers took a new oath to Hitler, and various organizations and institutions adopted Nazi ideas and implemented Nazi policies.

The annexation of Austria was widely popular in both Germany and Austria. However, it resulted in an outburst of public violence against Austria's Jewish population. There were approximately 200,000 Jews in Austria at the time, and the Anschluss marked a terrible turning point for them. Beginning on the night of March 11 and in the following weeks, there was pogrom-like violence across the country. Austrian Nazis and others beat, attacked, and humiliated Jews, forcing them to perform humiliating tasks and scrubbing the streets.

Soon, Austria's Jews were subjected to discriminatory laws and restrictions, and many decided to try to leave the country. Lines appeared at consulates across Vienna. The Nazis also established Gestapo offices in Austria to hunt down political opponents.

The international community did not intervene to stop the annexation or punish Nazi Germany for violating international treaties. This was a significant act of appeasement, allowing Hitler to continue his expansionary policies unchecked.

Mauthausen Liberation

The liberation of Mauthausen took place on 5 May 1945, when the camp was approached by a squad of US Army soldiers from the 41st Reconnaissance Squadron of the 11th Armored Division, 3rd US Army.

The liberation of the camp followed the arrival of US troops on 5 May and the securing of the surrounding area. Further units, including the 11th Armored Division of the Third Army, arrived in the succeeding days.

On 3 May 1945, the SS abandoned the camp to the custody of a guard unit of 50 Viennese firefighters, who remained on the perimeter of the camp. Members of an "International Committee" formed by the prisoners in the last days of April administered the camp as units of the US Army arrived.

The liberation of Mauthausen was preceded by the evacuation of concentration camps near the front lines to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Prisoners were evacuated by train, truck, and forced march from Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, and Gross-Rosen, arriving at Mauthausen in early 1945. As a result, the camp and its subcamps became lethally overcrowded, and thousands of prisoners died from starvation or disease.

The liberation of Mauthausen also followed the destruction of evidence of war crimes by the SS. In April 1945, as Allied troops advanced, the SS began to destroy traces of its crimes. They dismantled installations for mass killing, ordered incriminating documents to be burned, and murdered concentration camp prisoners who could have testified against the perpetrators in court.

The liberation of Mauthausen revealed the harsh conditions and brutal treatment of prisoners. The camp was severely overcrowded, and prisoners suffered from malnutrition, beatings, and very hard labour. The liberation also revealed the extermination methods used by the SS, including the use of a gas chamber, deliberate shooting, throwing prisoners on electric barbed wire, hanging, and beating prisoners to death.

The liberation of Mauthausen and its subcamps revealed the extent of the camp system in Austria. Mauthausen was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The liberation of Mauthausen was followed by the liberation of all remaining subcamps by 6 May, with the exception of two camps in the Loibl Pass.

The liberation of Mauthausen was a significant event in the history of World War II and the Holocaust. It was one of the first massive concentration camp complexes in Nazi Germany and the last to be liberated by the Allies. The liberation revealed the harsh conditions, brutal treatment, and extermination methods used in the camp system. The liberation also allowed for the collection of evidence of war crimes and the prosecution of perpetrators.

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