Austria's Concentration Camp Locations: A Dark History

Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany in 1938, and the Mauthausen concentration camp was established shortly after. Mauthausen was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The camp provided slave labour to work in nearby stone quarries and factories. It was one of the most brutal and severe of the Nazi concentration camps, with inmates suffering from malnutrition, overcrowding, constant abuse, and exceptionally hard labour. The number of inmates rose from 1,080 in late 1938 to over 3,000 a year later, and by the end of the war, the camp system included 101 camps. In addition to Mauthausen and its subcamps, other camps in Austria extended from Lochau in the west to Strasshof in the east.

Mauthausen concentration camp and its sub-camps

Mauthausen, one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps, was located near the village of Mauthausen, on the Danube River, 12 miles (20 km) east of Linz, Austria. It was established in April 1938, shortly after Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany. Starting as a satellite of Dachau, in Germany, it became an independent camp in the spring of 1939, operated by the SS (the Nazi paramilitary corps) and acquiring satellite camps of its own throughout Austria, all collectively called Mauthausen.

The camp provided slave labour to work previously abandoned stone quarries nearby. During its first year, the camp received prisoners transferred from Dachau—mainly convicted criminals, but also so-called “asocial elements,” including political prisoners, homosexuals, and others. The camp later became a detention centre for anti-Nazis from all over Europe, including 10,000 Spanish Republicans. In November 1941, Soviet prisoners of war began arriving. The first Jews arrived in May 1941, but Jews were a small minority of the camp prisoners until 1944, when Jews from Poland (especially from Plaszow) and Hungary greatly increased the camp population. Still later, Mauthausen absorbed survivors of the infamous death marches from evacuated extermination camps.

All categories of prisoners carried the official instructions "Rückkehr unerwünscht" ("return not desired"), and the inmates were thus starved, beaten, used for medical experiments, and subjected to the most grueling work, especially in the local quarries. The Nazis delivered unruly prisoners and captured escapees from other camps to Mauthausen for punishment by beating, hard labour, shooting, or gassing.

About 200,000 prisoners passed through Mauthausen. Some 120,000 of them died, mainly from starvation, disease, and the hardships of labour. About 38,000 of the dead were Jews. 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 too weak to work or too “undesirable” to be kept alive.

The Mauthausen main camp operated from 8 August 1938, several months after the German annexation of Austria, to 5 May 1945, when it was liberated by the United States Army. 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, under conditions that caused many deaths. Mauthausen and its subcamps included quarries, munitions factories, mines, arms factories and plants assembling Me 262 fighter aircraft. The conditions at Mauthausen were even more severe than at most other Nazi concentration camps. Half of the 190,000 inmates 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.

Gusen concentration camp

Gusen was established on 25 May 1940, with a capacity of around 6,000 inmates—larger than the main camp at Mauthausen. The camp was built and operated by the SS (Schutzstaffel) and was designed to increase the productivity of workers in the nearby quarries. The SS had purchased the land on 25 May 1938, and initially deployed a forced labour detachment from Mauthausen to the Gusen quarries.

The first prisoners at Gusen were mainly Polish and Spanish Republicans, transferred from Mauthausen. During the winter of 1939-1940, German, Austrian, and Polish prisoners from Mauthausen constructed the camp and prisoner barracks. Gusen officially opened on 25 May 1940, when the first prisoners and guards moved in.

Gusen was designed as a forced labour camp, with prisoners working in the quarries, producing granite, freestone, paving stone, and gravel. Conditions were harsh, with prisoners facing starvation rations, forced labour, and beatings by guards and kapos (trusted prisoners). The camp was also used for medical experiments, with SS physicians conducting tuberculosis experiments on healthy prisoners.

In 1943, the camp's purpose shifted to armaments production for Messerschmitt and Steyr-Daimler-Puch. Prisoners were forced to construct vast underground factories, with Messerschmitt producing aircraft parts and Steyr-Daimler-Puch manufacturing rifles and machine pistols.

The number of prisoners at Gusen increased to over 24,000 by the end of 1944, including the arrival of thousands of Polish Jews from camps such as Auschwitz, Plaszow, and Flossenbürg. The high mortality rate at the camp, caused by brutal treatment, starvation, and disease, led to a constant influx of new prisoners.

Gusen was liberated by the US Army on 5 May 1945. Over the course of its existence, at least 35,000 out of a total of over 60,000 registered prisoners died at Gusen.

St. Pantaleon-Weyer concentration camp

The St. Pantaleon-Weyer concentration camp, also known as the Labor Education- and Gypsy Detention Camp St. Pantaleon-Weyer, was a former National Socialist detention camp located in Upper Austria. The camp existed from July 1940 to November 1941 and was situated in Weyer, a part of the municipality of Haigermoos, which belonged to the municipality of Sankt Pantaleon until 1945.

Initially, the camp served as a Labor Education Camp, targeting individuals who refused work, skipped work, caused disturbances at the worksite, or were deemed "anti-social." The prisoners, who were mostly men, were forced to perform drainage and regulatory work on the river Moosach under the supervision of the camp staff, which included gendarmerie and police reservists. The camp was characterised by violence and abuse, with the first death occurring when Johann Gabauer from Julbach was left lying next to his fellow workers with fatal injuries.

In January 1941, the camp was converted into a Gypsy Detention Camp, and more than 350 Austrian Sinti and Romanies were detained, including women and children. The conditions in the camp were harsh, and the causes of death for children and the elderly were often listed as "life-weakness" or "heart failure." The camp physician, Alois Staufer, reported to the District Court a case of the Weyer camp, in which minors were forced to work, prisoners were treated violently, and there were killings.

On November 4, 1941, the camp was closed, and the prisoners were transported to Lackenbach in Burgenland and then to the Łódź (Litzmannstadt) Ghetto and the Kulmhof extermination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof an der Nehr). The staff of the St. Pantaleon-Weyer camp were convicted by the People's Court after the war, but they were released from prison in April 1955 due to an amnesty. Today, a memorial site commemorates the victims of the camp.

Bretstein concentration camp

The Bretstein concentration camp was a sub-camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp, located in the upper part of Styria, near Judenburg. It was established in June 1941 as a satellite camp of Mauthausen, which was located in Upper Austria and directed over 50 external camps.

Bretstein was commissioned by the "German research institute for nutrition and alimentation GmbH", an enterprise owned by the SS. The SS began running a sheep and horse farm on three different mountain farms in Bretsteingraben in 1939. The camp was constructed by its first prisoners, who were sent from the Mauthausen camp. The prisoners, predominantly Spanish Republicans and members of Jehovah's Witnesses, were forced to work on road construction and in agriculture. They were guarded by approximately 50 members of the SS unit Totenkopfsturmbannes Mauthausen, who treated them barbarously.

The camp consisted of four barracks for prisoners, surrounded by fences and watchtowers, with two additional barracks for the SS staff. The highest number of prisoners at the camp at one time was around 80, though at least 170 prisoners were transferred there over the course of its operation. Conditions were especially harsh due to the mountain climate and the lack of food and clothing provided. At least seven prisoners were killed in the camp, and many others attempted to escape.

The Bretstein concentration camp was closed on 25 June 1943, with the last prisoners being sent to the Mauthausen camp.

The Kristallnacht Pogroms in Austria

On 9–10 November 1938, the Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogroms were unleashed by Nazi leaders against the Jewish population in Germany and recently incorporated territories, including Austria. The event got its name from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues were smashed. The violence was instigated primarily by Nazi Party officials and members of the SA (Sturmabteilung) and Hitler Youth.

In Austria, the Kristallnacht pogroms were particularly brutal. Most of the synagogues in Vienna were destroyed, burned in full view of fire departments and the public. Jewish businesses were also vandalised and ransacked. Thousands of Jews were arrested and deported to the Dachau or Buchenwald concentration camps. Many Jewish homes were vandalised and Jewish men were forced to march through the town of Baden-Baden.

The Kristallnacht pogroms marked a turning point in the persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime. It was the first time that massive arrests of Jews were made specifically because they were Jews, without any further cause for arrest. The violence also signalled a shift in Nazi policy from economic, political, and social exclusion to physical violence, including beatings, incarceration, and murder.

The Kristallnacht pogroms had a significant impact on public opinion, both within Germany and internationally. Many Germans expressed their disapproval of the violence and described it as senseless. Internationally, the pogroms sparked outrage and discredited pro-Nazi movements in Europe and North America, leading to a sharp decline in their support. The brutality of the Kristallnacht pogroms and the Nazi government's encouragement of the violence laid bare the widespread anti-Semitism entrenched in Germany, turning world opinion sharply against the Nazi regime.

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