Gusen II concentration camp

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Allied aerial view of KL Gusen I and II (KL Gusen II left, at No. 19)

The concentration camp Gusen II in the village of St. Georgen an der Gusen , municipality of St. Georgen an der Gusen, was administratively run as a work camp of the Waffen SS from March 9, 1944 . This camp was improvised from the beginning of 1944 a few hundred meters west of the Gusen I concentration camp to accommodate up to 16,000 prisoners for the construction and operation of the underground B8 Bergkristall aircraft factory .

The dying and the dead were carelessly left in the sand

The living and working conditions in the commandos of this camp were among the most terrible within the National Socialist system . Some of the prisoners were deported directly from the Auschwitz concentration camp to the Gusen II concentration camp . The average life expectancy of the inmates was about four months. Several thousand prisoners from the Gusen II concentration camp were also taken to the so-called medical camp at Mauthausen concentration camp in the spring of 1945 to be killed there.

After the liberation, victims of KL Gusen were taken to mass graves by locals.

Living and working conditions

Because of the living and working conditions for the inmates, camp Gusen II was considered the worst in the Mauthausen / Gusen camp system. Most of the prisoners who were deported and surviving from Auschwitz after 1944 described it as the hell of all hells . The conditions in the camp were extremely primitive, dirty and the hygienic conditions were catastrophic. Sometimes there were no beds, clothes or clean drinking water available, and epidemics occurred. The guards consisted to a large extent of around 2,000 members of the Air Force , who were forcibly taken over into the Waffen SS from summer 1944 on top orders . The use of criminal prison functionaries exacerbated the situation. The Jewish prisoners were housed in a separate "Jewish camp".

Strategic Importance and Liberation

The camp was administered as a labor camp for the construction of B8 Bergkristall and as "Block E" of the Gusen I concentration camp. According to Himmler's plans, all prisoners of KL Gusen II and I and KL Mauthausen were to be blown to death in the extensive tunnels of B8 Bergkristall and Kellerbau at the end of the war in order to avoid witnesses and secret carriers.

The entrances for the prisoners to B8 Bergkristall

On May 2, 1945, the ICRC delegate Louis Häfliger learned of Himmler's murderous plans in a conversation with SS-Obersturmführer Guido Reimer , the head of the espionage and sabotage defense in the camp, and decided to do everything in his power to help them To prevent the tunnels from being blown up and the murder of the occupants. On May 4, Häfliger, with Reimer's support, painted an SS vehicle white and equipped it with a Red Cross flag. In the early morning hours of the following day, Häfliger and Reimer drove with a driver into the area to look for Allied troops. With the support of the Deputy Mayor of St. Georgen / Gusen, they encountered a patrol of 23 soldiers from the 11th Armored Division of the 3rd US Army under the command of Sergeant Albert J. Kosiek . Häfliger convinced the commandant to liberate the camp and arranged for Reimer to deactivate the explosive charges in St. Georgen and Gusen. The information on the number of rescued concentration camp inmates varies between 40,000 and 60,000 people, depending on the source.

Functional elements

Prisoner camp from 1944 to 1945

The inmates were accommodated in a total of 18 blocks, which were gradually built and which were surrounded by an electric fence with wooden watchtowers. Inside the prisoner camp there was a washing block for up to 16,000 prisoners, as well as a prisoner kitchen. The two medical stations (districts) were housed in Block 13 from the end of 1944 and in Block 16 from January 1945.

SS infrastructure 1944 to 1945

There were four accommodation buildings available for the SS guards , the camp management was housed in the command building. For the daily transfer to St. Georgen, there was a rail connection and a footpath that ran parallel to the so-called "Schleppbahn".

Work details of the inmates

For the Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH (DEST) founded by the SS , a cooperation between the Reich Aviation Ministry , Reichsführer SS and Messerschmitt GmbH Regensburg, various groups of inmates, the "commands", were used. During the construction of the Bergkristall facility, the commands were divided into expansion, train station, concrete, electrician, geometer, storage area, Mögle pit, Pötsch pit, tunnel construction and the transport column command. For the production in the rock crystal plant, the commands tank upgrade, spot welding, hull construction, locksmith's shop and the tank construction command were used.

Key personnel

The key personnel of the camp included the commandant's subordinate to the Schutzhaftlagerführer I of KL Gusen I, SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Seidler , which was led by SS-Hauptscharführer Franz Gottfried Schulz until March 1945 and from April 1945 SS-Hauptsturmführer Max Pausch. Subordinate to them were the Rapportführer SS-Obersturmführer Richard Bendel (1944 to 1945) and the prisoner functionaries. These were headed by the camp elder Hans van Loosen, camp clerk I (administration) was Leitzinger, camp clerk II (work assignment) was Franz Gruschka until January 1945 and Antoni Lisiecki from January 1945. The block manager of the camp was Karl Albrecht .

See also

literature

Web links

Coordinates: 48 ° 15 ′ 34.5 "  N , 14 ° 27 ′ 36.1"  E