Gusen concentration camp
Gusen was a subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp operated by the SS between the villages of Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and Langestein in the Reichsgau Ostmark. It was primarily populated by Polish prisoners; there were also large numbers of Spanish Republicans, Soviet citizens, and Italians. Initially, prisoners worked in nearby quarries, producing granite which was sold by the SS company DEST.
Conditions were worse than at the Mauthausen main camp due to the camp's purpose of extermination through labor of real and perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. The life expectancy of prisoners was as short as six months, and at least 35,000 people died there from forced labor, starvation, and mass executions. From 1943, the camp was an important center of armaments production for Messerschmitt and Steyr-Daimler-Puch. In order to expand armaments production, the camp was redesignated Gusen I, and additional camps, Gusen II and Gusen III, were built. Prisoners were forced to construct vast underground factories, the main one being the, intended for the production of Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter aircraft. Nearly a thousand fuselages were produced there by the war's end.
The camp was liberated by the United States 11th Armored Division and 26th Infantry Division early in the morning of 5 May 1945. During the chaos of liberation, a number of former kapos were killed. After the war, some SS personnel and kapos were tried for their crimes, although most went unpunished. The site was redeveloped into a privately owned village, although there is a small museum run by the Austrian government.
Background
Following World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken up. Most Austrians wanted a union with Germany, but the Allied victors forbade a plebiscite from being held and forced the new country to change its name from "Republic of German-Austria" to "Republic of Austria". On 13 March 1938, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in the Anschluss; German forces were greeted by enthusiastic crowds. Immediately afterwards, a reign of terror began against anti-Nazis, Jews, and Austrians mistaken for Jews. The Gestapo established an office in Vienna two days later. Hundreds were arrested and deported to Dachau concentration camp.The site of Mauthausen concentration camp was chosen in May 1938 by an SS delegation including Theodor Eicke and Oswald Pohl. Along with Flossenbürg concentration camp, its purpose was to quarry granite for Nazi architectural projects. The location was chosen for the quarries around the villages of Mauthausen and Sankt Georgen an der Gusen, leased by the SS enterprise DEST. The concentration camp, located from Linz, was officially established in August. By the end of next month, prisoners from Dachau had finished the barracks for prisoners and the SS. The quarry near Gusen was on land leased and later purchased from the firm. It is likely that the SS had already been planning to build a concentration camp because the deal for the Gusen quarry was made in May 1938, before that of the Mauthausen quarry.
Establishment
The first and largest subcamp of Mauthausen, Gusen began in December 1939 with a work detail of 10 or 12 German and Austrian prisoners who were assigned to build barracks adjacent to the Gusen quarry, just from Mauthausen. The camp was built to increase the productivity of workers at the quarry just north of the site, who otherwise had to walk from the Mauthausen main camp and back again, reducing their productive hours. Of all the quarries near Mauthausen, Gusen produced most of the architectural quality granite; it also produced freestone, paving stone, and gravel which was sold by DEST. By January, the number of prisoners on the detail had increased to 400 and it included Polish prisoners from March. The prisoners were not given coats or gloves, and were not allowed to access the fires lit by kapos and SS guards. About 1,800 Mauthausen prisoners died between December and April, many of them while working on the construction details at Gusen. The camp was officially opened on 25 May 1940, when the first prisoners and guards moved in. The camp was directly adjacent to the road between Sankt Georgen an der Gusen and nearby Langenstein; former prisoners recalled Austrian children passing by on the way to school. Until the camp wall was completed, passerby had a full view of what was happening in the camp.Conditions
Mauthausen and Gusen were the only concentration camps rated by the SS as Category III, the highest rating, and conditions in Gusen were even worse than at the main camp. In 1940 and 1941, the average life expectancy was six months, and the average weight of prisoners in 1940–1942 was. In late 1941, a typhus epidemic broke out, which resulted in the mass killing of ill prisoners. The main purpose of the camp was extermination through labor of real and perceived political enemies of the Reich, rather than exploitation of their economic potential through slave labor, so mortality rates were higher than at most concentration camps. One group of prisoners would die, but the number was maintained due to transports of incoming prisoners. Thus, the number of prisoners was maintained at around 6,000 to 7,000 until 1943 despite the high death rate. Work in the quarries, which was specifically intended to cause the death of prisoners, continued until the end of the war despite the opening of war production. Prisoners faced starvation rations, forced labor, and beatings by guards and kapos, while being denied basic sanitary facilities. The camp for prisoner accommodations was a rectangle, which covered and had 32 prisoner barracks, was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Its intended capacity of 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners was soon exceeded. Twice a day, prisoners were counted at the roll-call plaza at the eastern end of the camp. Growth of the camp was fueled by the Gusen, Kastenhof, and Pierbauer quarries, whose stone was in demand throughout Austria.SS command
Commandants of Gusen reported directly to Mauthausen commandant SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Ziereis. The first commandant was Anton Streitwieser, who was dismissed in May 1940 for running an unauthorized pig farm and feeding the pigs with rations siphoned from the supply intended for prisoners. From 25 May 1940 to October 1942 or January 1943, the SS commandant was SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Chmielewski, who had been a member of the SS since 1932 and the camp SS since 1935. His Rapportführer was and Kurt Kirchner was the labor service leader. Often drunk, he personally beat, kicked, whipped, and killed prisoners; he had considerable autonomy in running the camp and ensured that life was characterized by violence and sadism. During Chmielewski's rule, one half of prisoners died. From October 1942 until the end of the war, SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Friedrich August Seidler was the commandant. Seidler preferred "Prussian-style" brutality instead of his predecessor's indiscriminate style. Until 1943, Gusen was run more as a branch of the main camp than as a subcamp, although it had separate administrative departments, such as Political Department.Initially, the watchtowers, equipped with machine guns and searchlights, were made of wood; later they were replaced by granite. In addition to the barbed-wire fence, an additional stone wall high was built around it in 1941; patrols of guards went between the barriers. A third fence, of barbed wire, was added to encircle the entire camp complex, including external factories and quarries. The SS had a separate complex for its own barracks, located outside of the prisoner camp. In February 1940, there were about 600 SS guards. This later increased to 2,000, and 3,000 by 1944. They belonged to four Camp SS companies, part of SS-Totenkopfsturmbann Mauthausen. In early 1945, many were drafted into the Kampfgruppe Oberdonau and were replaced by Viennese firemen, former Wehrmacht personnel, and Volkssturm militiamen. Nazi human experimentation took place at Gusen, including surgical and tuberculosis experiments. SS physician Helmuth Vetter, who arrived in 1944, conducted the tuberculosis experiments by injecting the lungs of healthy prisoners with phlegmonic pus. The victims were then forced to run until they collapsed, at which point they were killed by benzene injection to the lungs, which prolonged the dying process.
Most of the prisoner functionaries, especially block leaders, were German criminal prisoners who were initially picked by Chmielewski. Some kapos were notorious for their brutality, including Wolf, a German who executed prisoners by hanging and stamped on the bodies, and the Spaniards Asturias, Félix Domingo, Indalecio González González, Losa, Tomás, and a man called "el Negro". The Austrian kapo Rudolf Fiegl participated in gassing inmates. On Sundays, football teams played on the Appellplatz for SS amusement. Participants were rewarded with extra rations. In 1942, a Nazi camp brothel opened at the camp in order to reduce the number of prisoner functionaries who were tempted to coerce young male inmates into sex. At the brothel ten women, all considered "Aryan", were coerced into offering sex in exchange for a false promise of their freedom. Most of them were drafted into a women's Waffen-SS unit in March 1945.
Execution
Some prisoners, no longer capable of hard labor, were sent from Mauthausen to Gusen in order to be killed. At Gusen, the SS forced arriving prisoners to run in order to test their fitness. Those unable to perform the task sufficiently well were immediately killed, a fate that befell 3,000 of the first 10,000 prisoners sent to Gusen. Because they were never registered, these prisoners were not included in the official death statistics. After two Polish prisoners, Victor Lukawski and Franc Kapacki, escaped on 13 August 1940, the eight hundred prisoners in their work detail had to run carrying rocks and were beaten by SS guards. Later, they had to stand at attention all night without food. Fourteen Polish prisoners died and so did Lukawski and Kapacki, who were beaten to death a few days later after being caught. Construction on the Gusen crematorium, a double-muffle model built by Topf and Sons, began in December 1940. In use from late 1941, the crematorium was under the command of SS-Oberscharführer Karl Wassner.Either Chmielewski or SS-Hauptscharführer invented a new execution method called Totbaden. Prisoners unable to work and others the SS wanted to kill were forced to stand under cold showers until they died, which could take twenty minutes to two hours. The drains were blocked and those who tried to avoid the water were drowned. Afterward, falsified causes of death were entered into the official record. This execution method was used only at Gusen, and was considered inefficient by SS actuaries. During winter, prisoners were stripped naked and forced to stand outside of Block 32 at night in groups of 150. Typically, half would die before morning and the rest would die the next day.
During the final months of the war, an improvised gas chamber was devised at Gusen in a crudely converted barracks. The number of prisoners who were murdered there is estimated at 800 or more than 1,000. Previously, on 26 March 1942, around 100 Soviet prisoners of war were gassed in Block 16 with Zyklon B. Other prisoners were transported to Mauthausen to be gassed, or murdered in the gas van between Mauthausen and Gusen. From early 1942, sick prisoners were selected at Gusen to be murdered in the gas chamber at Hartheim Euthanasia Center; the total number of victims from Gusen is estimated to be 1,100. In April 1945, 800 prisoners were beaten to death in Gusen II and transported to Gusen I for cremation. According to the official records, 27,842 people died at Gusen. The actual number is believed to be at least 35,000 or more than 37,000. More than 10,000 of these deaths are believed to have occurred in 1945.