<p>A view of the quarry at the <a href="/narrative/3880/en">Mauthausen</a> concentration camp, where prisoners were subjected to <a href="/narrative/3384/en">forced labor</a>. <a href="/narrative/5815/en">Austria</a>, 1938-1945.</p>

Mauthausen: Forced Labor and Subcamps

Forced labor in the quarry of the Mauthausen concentration camp.From the beginning, camp authorities deployed Mauthausen prisoners at forced labor, constructing the camp itself or at back-breaking work in the Wiener Graben stone quarry. As labor became increasingly scarce and the forced labor of camp inmates became increasingly important, especially in war-related industries, the number of prisoners incarcerated at Mauthausen and it subcamps steadily increased. On January 1, 1945, the Mauthausen camp system had 73,351 prisoners, 959 of them women. At this time Mauthausen incarcerated more male prisoners than any other concentration camp system in Nazi Germany, and had the third largest total prisoner population, behind Buchenwald and Gross-Rosen.

After the SS Economic-Administration Main Office (SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt; WVHA) assumed control of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps and the camp system in March 1942, the SS established hundreds of subcamps throughout the so-called Greater German Reich. Subordinate to the main concentration camps, these subcamps were generally located in the vicinity of factories, stone quarries and mines, in which SS labor allocation officers deployed prisoners transferred from the main camp. Between 1940 and 1945, the SS authorities established nearly 50 subcamps in the Mauthausen concentration camp system, most of them in 1943 and 1944.

Mauthausen subcamps, 1938-1945

Saul Ingber describes forced labor and brutality in the Gusen subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp

Among the most important subcamps were:

  • Gusen (1940–1945)
  • Steyr-Münichholz (1942–1945)
  • Ebensee (1943–1945)
  • Wiener Neudorf (1943–1945)
  • Wiener Neustadt (1943, 1944–1945)
  • Melk (1944–1945)
  • the detention camp Gunskirchen (1945)
  • Amstetten (1945)

Prisoners at the time of liberation of the Ebensee camp, a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp.


Critical Thinking Questions

  • How did the functions of the camp system expand after World War II began?
  • To what degree was the local population aware of this camp, its purpose, and the conditions within? How would you begin to research this question?
  • Did the outside world have any knowledge about these camps? If so, what, if any, actions were taken by other governments and their officials?
  • What choices do countries have to prevent, mediate, or end the mistreatment of imprisoned civilians in other nations?

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