As the Second World War turned against the Germans and the allies made advancements towards
the heart of the Third Reich, they came across a network of concentration camps.
The largest which was liberated was Auschwitz, and it told the true horrors of Hitler’s
regime.
There were many other camps which were liberated, and following the conflict a number of war
crimes trials took place to bring those perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice.
One of the largest camps in which over 90,000 people died inside the barbed wire fences
was Mauthausen.
It was found in Upper Austria, and was operational from 1938 to 1945.
It’s estimated that over 190,000 people were imprisoned there, but roughly half of
those people sent there would never leave.
So join us today as we look at, ‘The JUSTIFIED Executions Of the Guards of Mauthausen.’
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Even before the Second World War had broken out, concentration camps had been established
across German occupied territory.
In August 1938, prisoners were transported from Dachau to the town of Mauthausen in Austria,
and whilst here they were forced to create a new slave labour camp.
Mauthausen was close to a nearby granite quarry, and was also close to Linz where Hitler grew
up as a child.
The company who owned the quarry was run by a high ranking SS member, Oswald Pohl and
they rented the quarry from Vienna.
After the construction of Mauthausen, the company ordered further camps to be created,
including those 3 known as Gusen.
Mauthausen was planned to have been initially a camp for criminals, but it quickly became
a prison for political prisoners.
But Mauthausen and the complex involving the main camp is also known as Mauthausen-Gusen.
The three Gusen camps held more prisoners than the main camp at Mauhausen through its
time of operation, and they were put to work inside of the quarries.
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, when Germany invaded Poland, Mauthausen
at the time was already overcrowded with prisoners.
Within a year, the numbers tripled to around 3000 inmates, and because of this the camp
for polish prisoners at Gusen named Gusen I was created.
Here like at Mauthausen, the Gusen camps rented prisoners out to business so that they could
be used as slave labour.
Different types of prisoners came into the camps, including soviet POWs, and Austrians
were even used inside of the quarries around the area.
Two more Gusen camps would open as the Second World War continued, and the conditions at
these were rather terrible.
Gusen II for example had around 15,000 inmates and very few facilities such as bathrooms
and toilets, leading to horrific conditions inside.
Mauthausen was seen by the Germans as an efficient money making enterprise, that was very productive.
The sub camps and the main camp’s production was more than even Auschwitz which was larger,
and the slave labour at the camp saw more money turned out for the German war effort.
There were many different companies who utilised workers, including those who worked in medication
and pharmaceuticals, the largest WW2 steel supplier for German panzer tanks, V-2 rocket
factories and other works.
Prisoners were also forced to work on local farms and in local industry too, but as the
Second World War continued and turned against the Germans, the prisoners were even forced
underground to carve tunnels out to protect the industry from allied bombing.
In particular the did this to create the V-2 rockets and also the Me262 aircraft.
At the beginning of the camp’s life, it did not initially have a gas chamber of its
own.
If prisoners were too sick to work or were dying, then they were transferred across to
Hartheim Castle to be killed there.
Hartheim was a centre for extermination during this time, and it was closely involved in
the Aktion T4 programme.
People were killed there using either lethal injection or inside the gas chambers, but
it was deemed too expensive to keep transferring prisoners to Hartheim.
Because of this, Mauthausen used an improvised mobile gas chamber, which was a van with an
exhaust pipe connected to the inside.
It was transported between the Gusen camps and the main camp, and could kill around 120
prisoners each time.
In terms of who was imprisoned at Mauthausen, every category of people deemed undesirable
by the Germans were inside of Mauthausen, but there was a significant amount of political
prisoners and educated people there.
Resistance elements were also sent there, those suspected of defying the Nazi occupations,
for example Partisans found themselves there.
Transports of prisoners were taken to Mauthausen and the sub camps daily, and prisoners were
sent from Auschwitz there, and at one point Auschwitz was so crowded that prisoners were
sent to Mauhausen.
The treatment of different prisoners depended on their nationality, rank and category inside
of the camp.
Kapos were recruited to oversee the prisoners and these were given pay and also more food.
Mauthausen was seen as one of the most brutal Nazi concentration camps, and there was severe
issue with lack of food, malnutrition and overcrowding.
Also the guards and kapos beat the prisoners regularly if they did not work as hard, but
the conditions inside of the quarries were also terrible.
Often prisoners worked in the burning heat, and the freezing cold which led to further
deaths from dehydration or hyperthermia.
Also the food which prisoners were given was not sufficient for the work they were completing,
and it was estimated that prisoners weighed on average about 40 kilograms, and as the
war went on they received less food too, to the point where thousands of inmates starved
to death.
It was a vicious cycle, prisoners were given hardly any food, were forced to work incredibly
hard, if they did not they were beaten or were taken away to be killed, but ultimately
the forced labour also killed many.
The rock quarry in Mauthausen became infamous especially the element known as the Stairs
of death.
The prisoners were forced to carry heavy blocks of stone, sometimes as heavy as 50kg up the
stairs.
There were 186 stairs, and the work was incredibly intense.
Many prisoners collapsed on the stairs of death, and then when they fell they caused
the prisoners to then fall, causing injuries dropping the stone and also falling into other
prisoners.
Some died falling down the stairs, but the SS guards were also terrible.
They at times forced prisoners to run up the stairs with the blocks of stone, and those
who survived would then be told to line up on the edge of the cliff.
This was called the Parachutists wall, and whilst pointing their guns at the prisoners,
they would be told to either push the person in front of them off the cliff, or be shot
dead.
This sick game caused prisoners to choose between their lives or another prisoners,
and this was only done for the sick sport of the SS guards.
They also killed prisoners in other ways including organising executions.
These killings included where the guards who hang prisoners in front of others, and also
mass shootings with firing squads massacring prisoners who were seen to resist.
Spies were also executed there including a number of SOE agents.
The guards also were known for their murderous intent, and often threw prisoners against
the electrified barbed wire fence, which killed them.
They also sickeningly forced prisoners to walk outside the boundary of Mauthausen, before
they then fired at them.
Also used at the camp was icy showers, where prisoners were forced to have a freezing cold
shower, and then were forced to stand outside in the cold weather and this killed 3000 people.
It was estimated that the average life expectancy of prisoners was around 6 months, but as overcrowding
occured as the war went on then it was only 3 months.
Food rations became worse, causing death to come quicker for many.
As the Second World War was coming to an end, the germans began to destroy many of the files
of the camp, which covered up the exact deadly operation of the camp.
This lead to the death toll being impossible to be calculated, but it’s believed that
over 90,000 died at Mauthausen.
Shortly before the liberation occured, the commandant of Mauthausen took steps to prepare
to defend it against the coming soviet advancements.
Prisoners were forced to build anti tank obstacles, and preparations were made to evacuate the
camp.
Guards were replaced with unarmed members of the Volkssturm, and also elderly police
officers and firefighters from Vienna.
Work was stopped to prepare for the liberation or defence, and some German divisions did
assault the sub camps, but prisoners managed to take control.
Only Gusen III was evacuated, and the inmates were forced on a death march but were ordered
then to return.
Mauthausen was liberated by the American 41st Reconaissance Squadron of the US 11th Armoured
Division.
They disarmed the police officers, and at the time of liberation the majority of the
SS guards had fled and 30 had been killed by the prisoners.
Amongst the survivors was Simon Wiesenthal, who later devoted his life to hunting Nazi
war criminals and bringing them to justice.
But after the fall of the Third Reich, Mauthausen fell inside of the Soviet sector of the occupation
of Austria.
But the focus then shifted to bringing those responsible of committing war crimes at Mauthausen
to justice.
The First Mauthausen Trial took place between the 29th March and 13th May 1946 at Dachau.
There were 61 former members of the camps administration from former local leaders to
cooks, doctors and guards placed on trial.
Those who were placed on trial including August Eigrube the Gauleiter of Upper Austria and
also Friedrich Entress, a doctor who’s experimentation killed hundreds.
The defendants were charged with violating the laws and usages of war, which included
murder, torture, beating and starving prisoners.
It took 6 weeks, but all 61 of the defendants were found guilty and a large percentage of
them were condemned.
58 were sentenced to death, but 9 sentences were later commuted to life impirosnment.
There were former Kapos executed too, and the former staff that worked there were then
transferred to Landsberg Prison to await their executions.
Landsberg became a site where hundreds of war criminals were executed within following
the war crimes trials that took place.
Most of the death sentences were carried out via hanging, but a number were completed by
firing squads.
The defendants were executed over two days, the 27th May and the 28th as there were so
many hangings to carry out.
Each defendant was brought out of their cell into the courtyard of the prison, and they
were accompanied by US guards who flanked them.
Their hands were tied behind their back and before they made their way to the gallows
and the scaffold that had been made, they had their identity confirmed.
After this a priest accompanied them up the steps, before they were handed over to the
executioner.
Final words were asked, before everything was prepared.
A black hood was placed over the defendants heads, and then the noose was placed over
their neck too and was tightened.
Within seconds of this happening, the guards and priest stood back, as did the executioner
who then pulled the lever sending the condemned plunging to their deaths.
As mentioned dozens of executions took place for the crimes of those committed at Mauthausen,
and there was also a number of other trials which took place to deal with the crimes that
occured at the camp.
More people were sentenced to death after, but they could not make up for the horror
that occured inside of Mauthausen.
A staggering number of people died inside of the complex, and the horror that the prisoners
had to endure on a daily basis was truly terrifying.
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