On 1 January 1944, the "Mittelwerk" delivered its first three rockets, all of which suffered from serious production defects. The SS considered those prisoners who had expanded the tunnels in autumn and winter of 1943/44 as unusable in actual production work, because they were either too weakened or not qualified for work on the assembly lines. As a result, new prisoners were brought in from other concentration camps. From March 1944, the others were moved to newly created subcamps in the area around Nordhausen where they continued to be used for digging new tunnels or working at construction sites above ground.