Former commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp Franz Ziereis testified shortly before his death

On May 23, 1945, at about 18.00, I was wounded by American soldiers while trying to escape near Spittal on Pirna. My name is Franz Ziereis, born 13.8.1905. I was the commandant of the Mauthausen camp and the camps adjacent to it. While trying to escape, I received bullet wounds in the left shoulder and in the back, and the bullet went into the stomach and pierced the peritoneum. I was taken to the 131st evacuation hospital in Gusen. I would also like to state the following.

In accordance with the order of Reich Minister Himmler, I was to destroy all prisoners on the instructions of Obergruppenführer Dr. Kaltenbrunner, namely: the prisoners were to be brought to the adit. The adit doors had to be previously sealed with brickwork so that only the entrance remained. And then the adit had to be blown up using some kind of explosive. I refused to carry out this order. We were talking about prisoners in the Gusen I and Gusen II camps. More detailed information is known to Mr. Wolfram and Obersturmführer Eckermann. The latter worked at Bergkristall.

In the Mauthausen camp, on the instructions of SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Krebsbach, one gas installation was built under the guise of a bathhouse. In this imaginary bathhouse, prisoners were gassed. In addition, a special vehicle ran from Mauthausen to Gusen, in which prisoners were gassed during the trip. This car was designed by the pharmacist SS Untersturmführer Wasicki. I myself never let gas in there. I was only driving a car, but I knew that prisoners were gassed. Gas poisoning was carried out at the insistence of the SS Hauptsturmführer doctor Dr. Krebsbach, who is currently in Kassel. He was expelled from the SS because he achieved acceptance into the SS through deception and played a double game. He was a Mason. Everything we did was done on the orders of the Reich Main Security Office, on the orders of Himmler, Heydrich, Obergruppenführer Müller or Dr. Kaltenbrunner, the Chief of the Security Police.

At the Mauthausen concentration camp

...Where Oberscharführer Jentsch is, I don’t know. In the camp Gusen I, he killed about 700 prisoners, forcing them to stand naked for one or several hours in twelve-degree frost and ordering ice water to be doused on them. I also do not know where Dr. Kieswetter, the SS Untersturmführer who killed several hundred prisoners by internal injection of gasoline, hydrogen (400 cc) is currently located. , calcium sulfate (25 percent), enarkon and evipan.

Dr. Richter, who for no reason operated on hundreds of prisoners, removed parts of their brains or performed operations on the stomach, kidneys or liver, I sent for the last time to the internment camp at Gunskirchen, entrusting him with the care of the prisoners there. I also know nothing about the fact that Unterscharführer Miroff, who was in Peggau, shot 15 sick prisoners. Although all types of flogging required approval from Berlin, I often flogged prisoners for my own pleasure.

Since the prisoners were very weak and did not receive food, Obergruppenführer Pohl ordered them to be driven into the forests so that they could eat berries and buds there. He agreed with the administration to reduce portions from 750 g per day to 350 g per week, and for the last twelve days the camp received neither bread nor meat.

Gruppenführer Glück gave instructions to consider all exhausted prisoners as mentally ill and to poison them with gas in a large gas installation. An estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people were killed there. This place is called Hartheim, it is located ten kilometers from Linz in the direction of Passau. In the camp, these prisoners were registered as having died of natural causes. Death certificates for people still alive, sent with the next transport, were written out in advance in the political department of the Gusen concentration camp.

I would like to have a confrontation with Reichsführer Himmler and Obergruppenführers Gluck and Pohl. It is said that Paul and Glück are now in St. Lambrecht near Lorenzhütte (a four-hour drive in the mountains).

The gas plant at Mauthausen was built on the instructions of Glück, as he believed that gassing prisoners was a more humane method of extermination than shooting.

Obergruppenführer Pohl once sent me, without prior notice, 6,000 women and children who had spent ten days on the road without any food. They were transported in December 1944 into the winter cold in open coal cars that had no roofs. According to the order received from Berlin, I was supposed to send these children in a marching column to Bergen-Belsen and I think that they all died. This was the reason that caused me a nervous shock.

A transport of 2,500 prisoners arrived from Auschwitz to Mauthausen, and, by order from Berlin, they were doused and washed in winter cold water on the parade ground where roll calls were usually lined up. I had to send this transport to Gusen, that is, about a ten-kilometer journey, having nothing for this purpose except underpants. I sent a request for clothing for the prisoners, but received a reply from Berlin that the prisoners, if there was no other possibility, should be sent there naked. I sent them to Gusen dressed only in long johns. This was repeated many times.

...As commandant, the following camps were under my jurisdiction:

Mauthausen with 12,000 prisoners, Gusen I and II with 24,000 prisoners, Gusen III with 300 prisoners, Linz I with 5000, Linz II with 500, Linz III with 300 prisoners, Ebensee with 12,000 prisoners, Passau I with 600, Passau II with 150, Passau III with 60 prisoners, Ternberg with 500 prisoners, Gross-Raming with 3,000 prisoners, Melk with 10,000 prisoners, Eisenerz with 500 prisoners, St. Lambrecht with 350 prisoners, Schloss-Lind with 20 prisoners, Peggau with 500, Peggau II with 600 prisoners, Klagenfurt-Junkerschule with 200 prisoners, Laibach with 500 prisoners, Loibplass with 2500 prisoners, Loibplass Nord with 1000 prisoners, Wien-Schwechat - Henschel factories with 4000, Wiener-Neustadt with 1500 prisoners, Mistelbach with 1000, Winner-Neudorf with 3000 prisoners, Florisdorf with 1000, Florisdorf - Heinkel works with 200, Saurer works with 1500 prisoners, Steyer-Münichholz with 3000, St. Valentin with 1500, Wels with 2000, Amstetten with 300, Gunskirchen with 450 prisoners . There were several more camps, about 45 in total, but I can’t remember exactly now.

Of great interest was the Schlier camp, where 1000 prisoners, most of them Jews, worked as graphic artists and lithographers. They were used exclusively for the production of counterfeit foreign banknotes, as well as passports and stamps of all countries of the world.

Transports with Jews. In the presence of Gauleiter Rainer, Dr. Ueberreiter, Dr. Urey, Baldur von Schirach and others, I received the following order from Himmler: the Jews of the Südosten district were to be sent on foot from all populated areas. Destination: Mauthausen. Accordingly, 60,000 Jews were to arrive in Mauthausen. In reality, only a very small portion arrived. As an example, I will give one group, which at the time of departure consisted of 4,500 Jews, and arrived in Mauthausen 180. I do not know from what point the example group was sent. The women and children were without shoes, in rags and covered with lice. There were entire families in this transport, a huge number of whom were shot along the way due to complete loss of strength.

The Messerschmitt factories in Oranienburg paid 5 marks for the work of each prisoner, but only 50 pfennigs were spent per prisoner. I note with indignation this corruption in the SS and resolutely demand a confrontation with all my superiors. I will tell these deceivers and murderers the whole truth! I myself was deceived by this, I’m not a learned man; I began my service as a private soldier and advanced through my zeal and work.

I know details about other camps: in 1941, all commandants were summoned to Saxenhausen, where they were shown how to quickly liquidate political instructors and Russian commissars.

At one end of the barracks, which stood in the distance, commissars and political instructors were gathered, and with the radio turned on at full volume, they were led through one by one dark corridor to the chamber where the execution took place. On the opposite wall of the chamber, there was a hole in one board, behind which a movable installation for the sight was placed. The execution was carried out by a shot in the back of the head from a weapon inserted into this hole. The SS chiefs from Gluck's headquarters were, to put it mildly, tipsy. This invention was invented by Oberführer Loritz. Behind the man doomed to death stood the SS Oberscharführers, who, after the shot was fired, threw the corpse onto the board and, while others opened the doors, piled the corpses in a heap with incredible cynicism. The crematoria located opposite the dead room also worked continuously. Daily productivity ranged from 1,500 to 2,000 people. By my calculations, this procedure lasted at least five weeks. By the time the commandants arrived, the crematoriums had already been operating for 14 days.

In Gross-Rosen, an SS doctor gave prisoners injections with a solution potassium cyanide to the area of ​​the heart. This was done by many SS doctors, constantly replacing each other. The commandant was SS-Obersturmführer Arthur Koegel. When I was still in the army, I witnessed how Jewish prisoners in Buchenwald were robbed of all their money and valuables. The SS chiefs were especially distinguished there, in particular Obersturmführer Hackmann, as well as Obersturmführer Mayer, who was distant relative Himmler. Each of them immediately purchased a comfortable car. Hackman, for example, wore a hat and top hat, and also carried stolen diamonds on his hands, and Mayer imitated him in this. The prison warden from Buchenwald committed larger embezzlements and traveled to Erfurt with one woman completely naked, where in well-known circles he organized drinking parties that cost him up to 5,000 marks and which he paid for with stolen money.

As far as I know, this caretaker, Oberscharführer Hirsch, returned one day to the punishment cell and saw no way out of his situation, and shot himself. This idea was suggested to him by Sturmführer Koch. The fact is that Hirsch knew all the details about Koch (Koch was syphilitic and was treated by a prisoner doctor, whom he later killed in cold blood with the help of an SS doctor).

The property of Jewish prisoners became the subject of widespread trade. For example, a blanket costing 6.20 marks was sold for 100 marks. Camp doctor Sturmbannführer Dr. Kirchner, a psychiatrist by profession, destroyed large number prisoners using well-known formula about spiritual inferiority. This entire action, which was also carried out in other camps, was indicated in the documents by the note "14f 13" and allegedly had the goal of preventing the appearance of hereditarily diseased offspring. Patients from Dachau, and partly from Buchenwald and Mauthausen, were examined by a commission that came from Berlin, chaired by Dr. Lobauer, who was engaged in private practice in Linz as a psychiatrist; they were then sent to the Hartheim psychiatric hospital near Linz. According to my calculations, in addition to the truly mentally ill, at least 20,000 Mauthausen prisoners were gassed. This was done using carbon dioxide. The room was tiled and disguised as a bathhouse. The perpetrators were not SS men, with the exception of Dr. Lobauer and Dr. Reynard, but police officers; I can’t remember the name of the police captain; he later died in Croatia. The ashes were dumped behind the building of a psychiatric hospital, and after the end of this action they were taken somewhere by trucks. This action was stopped by order of Adolf Hitler. The termination was motivated by the fact that as a result of an ineptly delivered notification to relatives in the form of sending fictitious condolences, relatives sometimes received two or three urns at once. In Auschwitz, a special representative of the Reichfuhrer, who was involved in transporting money, stole 40 kilograms of gold teeth and crowns; I don’t know the name of this man, but SS-Führer Gluck definitely knows him.

Ts i r a y s

Reminds me of Mauthausen. The Fight Behind Barbed Wire, (Vienna), pp. 75-84

Death figures in the most famous concentration camps:

Auschwitz – 4,000,000
Bergen - Belsen (last 2 months before the end of the war) - 48,000
Buchenwald – 52,000
Dachau and Dora-Nordhausen - 15,000
Flossenbürg – 73,296
Gross–Rosen (data before 1943) – 20,000
Majdanek (Lublin) – 1,380,000
Mauthausen – 122,766
Natzweiler – 25,000
Neuengamme (in the camp and during transportation) – 82,000
Papenburg (reception camp) – 10,600
Ravensbrück – 92,700
– 100 000
Stutthof (near Danzig) – 80,000
Theresienstadt – 58 341
Treblinka (for 6 months 1942) – 80,000

Mauthausen-Gusen); Ebenze; Melk.

The camp's prisoners formed the International Underground Committee, which proved successful in the last days of the camp's existence.

Story

Creation

On August 7, 1938, prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp were sent to build a new camp in the city of Mauthausen near Linz in Austria. The location of the camp was chosen based on its proximity to the Linz transport hub and the low population density of the site.

The Mauthausen concentration camp was designated as a penal camp in the German concentration camp system and was initially used as a place of detention for those criminals who were considered incorrigible, but from May 8, 1939 it was also designated as a place of detention for political prisoners especially dangerous to the regime.

The camp was created from the very beginning as a German state facility; it was founded by a private company in the form economic enterprise. The owner of the quarries in the Mauthausen area (Marbacher-Bruch and Bettelberg quarries) was the company DEST (an acronym for the full name Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH), which was headed by Oswald Pohl, who was also a high rank in the SS. The company, having purchased the quarries from the city authorities of Vienna, began construction of the Mauthausen camp. Granite, which came from quarries, was previously used only for paving the streets of Vienna and other Austrian cities. However, the architectural concept for rebuilding many German cities required significant quantities of granite. Since the autumn of 1938, DEST also began mining granite in the Gusen quarries, opening a network of concentration camps there - branches of Mauthausen.

Funds for the construction of the camp were collected from various sources, among which were commercial loans from the Dresdner Bank and the Prague Escompte Bank, the so-called Reinhardt Fund (which represented funds confiscated from concentration camp victims), and the German Red Cross. The head of DEST and several other companies, Oswald Pohl, as a major SS official, led and was the manager of finances in various Nazi organizations In addition, he was director of the German Red Cross. In 1938, he transferred 8 million Reichsmarks from Red Cross dues to one of the SS accounts, which were then donated to DEST in 1939.

Percentage prisoner camps by country

By the end of World War II, the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp system consisted of a central camp and 49 branches scattered throughout Upper Austria. The largest branch was the Gusen complex with the regional administration of the DEST firm in St. Georgen am Gusen.

"Block of Death"

In 1944, barracks No. 20 was surrounded by a separate stone wall. This barrack was called the “death block”. Prisoners sentenced to extermination for violations of the regime (mainly Soviet officers for escaping from prisoner of war camps) were sent there. The “Death Block” was used as a training camp for the training of members of the SS units for the protection of concentration camps (SS-Totenkopferbande). The prisoners were beaten and mocked. Even later, this practice was introduced throughout the camp. At any time, a detachment of “students” could burst into any barracks and beat to death as many prisoners as they wanted.

On the night of February 2-3, 1945 Soviet officers There was a mass escape from the “death block”. All local SS units, Wehrmacht, Hitler Youth and the local population were included in the hunt for fugitives. In SS documents this operation was called the “Mühlviertel hare hunt”.

Liberation of the concentration camp

On May 3, 1945, the SS and other guards began preparing to evacuate the camp. The next day, the fleeing guards were replaced by an unarmed Volkssturm detachment, as well as several policemen and firefighters, mostly elderly, evacuated from Vienna. Policeman Martin Gerken took command. He tried to create an "International Prisoners' Committee" that would become the governing body of the camp until it was liberated by approaching American troops, but was openly accused of collaborating with the SS and the plan failed.

Work at all branches of Mauthausen was stopped and the prisoners waited for release. Of the main branches of Mauthausen-Gusen, only Gusen-3 had to be evacuated. On May 1, the prisoners urgently had to undergo a death march to Sankt Georgen, but a few hours later the leadership ordered them to return back to the camp. The same operation was repeated the next day, but soon a canceling order was also received. In the evening next day The SS men finally abandoned the camp.

On May 5, 1945, American intelligence officers entered the Mauthausen-Gusen camp. Having disarmed the police, they left the camp. By the time the camp was liberated, most of the SS men had fled, but about 30 remained and were killed by prisoners, the same number were killed in Gusen-2. By May 6, all branches of the Mauthausen-Gusen camp complex, with the exception of two camps at Loibl Pass, had also been liberated by the Allied forces. Before the troops arrived at the central camp on May 7, armed clashes took place between prisoners and individual SS units near the camp.

Main branches of the Mauthausen concentration camp

• Linz-1
• Linz-2
• Linz-3
• Ebenze

Concentration camp victims

Monument to General Karbyshev on the territory of the former Mauthausen concentration camp.

Memorial plaque at the main gate of the former Mauthausen concentration camp with data on the number of citizens of various countries who died in this camp

The prisoners of Mauthausen were about 335 thousand people; over 122 thousand people were executed (most of all - over 32 thousand - Soviet citizens; among them, Lieutenant General of the Engineering Troops Dmitry Karbyshev, one of those who died from being doused with ice water in the cold, and Stalingrad resident Dmitry Osnovin, who became the national hero of Czechoslovakia.

Memory

After the end of World War II, a memorial museum. On the territory former camp Over 20 monuments were erected, including a monument to the Soviet Union. Near the main gate of the camp stands a monument to Dmitry Karbyshev. On the pedestal of the monument in Russian and German languages it is written: “To Dmitry Karbyshev: scientist, warrior, communist. His life and death were a feat in the name of the Motherland.”

At a distance of 100 m from the central camp there was a “revere” (that is, a camp hospital), which was called the “Russian camp”. This camp was built at the end of 1941 by the first Soviet prisoners who arrived in Mauthausen in October 1941. Most of them did not survive the spring of 1942. On the site of the "revere" a stele was erected in memory of Soviet prisoners of war.

War crimes trials

From March 29 to May 13, 1946, 61 camp employees were tried before an American military tribunal. 58 death sentences were imposed (9 were commuted to prison), 3 defendants received life sentences.

In 1950, the camp elder of Gusen I, Johann Kammerer, appeared before the court in Augsubrg. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 94 people. In 1976 he was released.

In 1961, the Ansbach court sentenced Gusen's commandant, Karl Chmielewski, to life imprisonment. In 1979 he was released due to health reasons.

In 1967, a Cologne court sentenced former Schutzhaftlagerführer Anton Streitwieser to life imprisonment. At the same trial, Karl Schultz was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Anton Streitwieser died in a prison hospital in 1972, and Schultz was soon released.

In 1970, the Hagen court sentenced Martin Roth to 7 years in prison, Werner Fassel to 6 and a half.

In 1972, the Memmingen court sentenced the former commandant of Ebensee, Anton Ganz, to life imprisonment. However, he did not serve his sentence because he was sick with cancer. Died in 1973.

Photo gallery

In literature

• Yuri Evgenievich Pilyar - novel “People remain people” (memoirs of a former prisoner of Mauthausen).
• Mikhail Pridonovich Pridonov - autobiographical story “I am a citizen...” (memoirs of a prisoner of Mauthausen).
• Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov - documentary story " Last Stand suicide bombers" (talks about block No. 20).
• Vsevolod Viktorovich Osten - autobiographical story “Rise above your pain: stories of a prisoner of Mauthausen.”
• Eijens Veveris - book of poems “Plant roses in the cursed ground” (Latvian. Iedēstiet rozes zemē nolādētā; 1969, Russian translation 1977), with the subtitle “The Poetic Diary of a Prisoner of Mauthausen”
• Jean Laffite- autobiographical story “The Living Struggle” (French: Ceux qui vivent).
• Paul-Lou Sulitzer - novel "The Green King".
• Valentin Ivanovich Sakharov - autobiographical story “In the dungeons of Mauthausen.”
• Ivan Fedorovich Khodykin - documentary story “The Living Do Not Surrender” (about the stay and uprising of Mauthausen’s “death block” No. 20, as well as about the survivors of it).

Creating a camp

The Mauthausen camp was built in Austria, which was then absorbed by Germany (the so-called Anschluss), in one of the most beautiful and scenic spots the Danube valley on the outskirts of the ancient Upper Austrian town of Mauthausen.

It began counting the bloody events back in 1938, when it became a “branch” of the Dachau concentration camp, located near the Bavarian capital, Munich.

Mauthausen was planned as a camp for incorrigible repeat criminals, and therefore its first prisoners were 300 Austrians and several Germans. But on May 8, 1939, it was converted into a labor camp for political prisoners.

In the summer of 1938, 2 thousand Jews were arrested on false denunciations, sent to Dachau and exterminated there. A “Central Point for Jewish Emigrants” was organized in Vienna, which served mainly to identify wealthy Jews and their subsequent “Aryanization”, i.e. robbery and destruction. Many of the Jews seriously hoped that the Nazis, having taken away all their property and property, would allow them to emigrate peacefully, but almost all of them ended their lives in the gas chambers of Mauthausen and other death camps scattered across Europe.

The first 2 thousand Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Mauthausen in November 1941.

Living conditions in the camp

For 1938 - 45 About 335 thousand people (according to other sources - 200 thousand) of more than 30 nationalities passed through Mauthausen. About 2.5% of the prisoners were women, and children and teenagers were also kept here.

In June 1942, on the orders of Himmler, the first of ten “prisoner brothels” was created in Mauthausen, in which prisoners were forced into prostitution. Most of these unfortunate women came here from women's concentration camp Ravensbrück. Those who became pregnant were forced to have abortions, and medical experiments were performed on women who contracted sexually transmitted diseases.

The prisoners lived and worked in barbaric conditions. They were forced to carry heavy granite blocks on their backs from the quarry to the camp - 186 steps along the “staircase of death”.

The blocks often fell, breaking the bones of those who came next, and sometimes killing them. The SS men placed bets on who would reach the mountain first. But those who survived were forced to jump off the edge of the quarry. This spot on the edge of the quarry was known as the "Skydive".
I will give an excerpt from the documentary story “Escape from Mauthausen by a prisoner of this camp, Mikhail Chernyshev (http://magazines.russ.ru/ural/2005/5/che6.html):

« Early in the morning the wide gates swung open, through which people walked in an endless stream to the Wienergaben quarry.

Imagine a human tape of ten people in a row. Here she comes to a terrible cliff-quarry, but to go down, you need to go through one hundred and eighty-six steps, and each step is death. The Nazis developed a system here for the methodical extermination of people they disliked. On the stairs there was harsh law: whoever fell on the steps was no longer a tenant, he was taken aside and shot. Everyone knew about this... The prisoners stood with horror on the first step, mentally counted down the next ones, and finally the one hundred and eighty-sixth, you can breathe a sigh of relief. But this is just the beginning, everything terrible is ahead. The ribbon of prisoners was falling apart. You need to take the stone and put it on yourself. They took a heavier stone, threw the light ones aside, if you don’t throw them away, consider it all over. With a light load, you will definitely be discovered by the SS men standing in a chain on the steps of the stairs, and then they will order you to go down, put such a load on your shoulders that you cannot overcome one hundred and eighty-six steps, you will fall under the weight. When you are without a burden, they will order you to go up and take you five steps away from the stairs. Now you are nothing more than a living target for the SS man. A shot - and the man who fell on the steps of the terrible staircase is no longer on earth. His last path- on a small trolley to the crematorium, and that’s it. If there are no SS men, you will be thrown from top to bottom onto sharp stones - still death!»

In 1944, the SS selected forty-seven Dutch, American and British officers and pilots and led them barefoot to the bottom of the quarry.Loading them with 25 kg granite blocks, they sent them up 186 steps. Each subsequent climb up the stairs, people carried heavier stones. If a prisoner fell, he was beaten. All 47 prisoners died. "(KonnilynFeig, Hitler's death camps, New York. Holmes andMeier, 1979, p. 121).

Use of prisoners as labor

Production capacities of the largest branches Mauthausen were focused on the production of U-2 missiles and Me-262 jet aircraft. These production facilities were built and maintained by thousands of prisoners from European countries. Only the rapid Allied advance prevented the creation of thousands of new military equipment that could withstand the advancing forces and slow the end of the war.

However, the price of such a technological and production breakthrough was the destruction of the lives of tens of thousands of prisoners. High economic results were directly related to slave labor, inhuman conditions existence, a constant atmosphere of fear and humiliation, a feeling of constant hunger- only such a terrible combination made it possible to unceremoniously dispose of people’s lives, suppressing their will and reason. The energy value of the diet, which was less than 1500 kcal per day, was not sufficient for heavy physical labor.

Prisoners from Soviet Union

The attitude of the camp administration towards to prisoners from the Soviet Union, the second largest category of prisoners, was the most brutal, both due to the racial theory prevailing in the Third Reich and due to military failures on the eastern front. Soviet prisoners were sent to the most difficult work: to the quarry and to build tunnels. The average life expectancy of Soviet prisoners was several weeks. Soviet prisoners were prohibited from receiving parcels from home and receiving Red Cross assistance. Most of them were representatives of the civilian population of areas occupied by the Nazis, deported to work in Germany. Despite their large numbers, Soviet prisoners were at the very bottom of the social ladder.

Hierarchy

At the very top of the social ladder were German and Austrian criminals. It was they who were part of the camp administration, and with their help the SS camp leadership exercised control and management of the camp. The criterion by which SS officers selected candidates for the camp administration was uncomplaining submission and a tendency towards sadism.

The structure of the camp administration made it possible to control the lives of prisoners both in the camp and during work. Camp functionaries had the greatest degree of freedom in the camp, which made them virtually “ masters of lives».

Foci of resistance

To counteract this terrible situation, pockets of resistance began to emerge in every national environment. Their forces were small, and they only managed to support their compatriots a little, preventing them from quickly dying. The scale of these outbreaks was determined national mentality and having relevant experience.

Real development underground The camp movement, towards which there had always been progress among prisoners, was able to enter an active phase only when they began to appoint political German and Austrian prisoners instead of criminals in place of camp functionaries, due to a shortage of criminals. Becoming functionaries, political prisoners began to consolidate national movements, establishing connections and helping national resistance movements.

There was no talk of any serious resistance among political prisoners due to the fact that they were not at all characterized by a transition to any active actions of confrontation, escape or uprising. Their main task was to gradually oust criminal functionaries from key positions and replace them with active resistance figures.

The Soviet National Committee, unlike others, planned an action of disobedience or uprisings. An example of this is the escape of exhausted and condemned Soviet officers on February 2, 1945, unique in its scale and audacity, from block 20.

Finding themselves in the worst camp conditions and virtually doomed to death, the exhausted people found the strength and courage to organize an escape.

Soviet prisoners of war

570 Soviet officers and commissars, several participants in the Warsaw Uprising, as well as several Yugoslav partisans, escaped on February 2, 1945 at 0:50 am. (in the literature you can find other figures - up to 700 people). According to the administration of the Mauthausen concentration camp, 19 prisoners were not caught. The names of the 11 surviving prisoners are known. 8 people remain nameless

The basis for the transfer of Russian officers to the Death Block of the Mauthausen concentration camp was a secret decree (the so-called “Keitel order”) of the Wehrmacht High Command dated March 2, 1944. It prescribed that any officer who escaped, with the exception of British and American prisoners of war, should be handed over to the Security Police upon capture (SiPo) and security services (SD) with the keyword "Stage 3" ("Stufe III"). By "step 3" was meant the Mauthausen concentration camp. This action was called "Action-K" (Aktion " K"), short for "Kugel"(bullet).

Accounting of Soviet prisoners of war killed as a result of “Action-K”was not carried out. After the arrival of the prisoners marked "K“They were not assigned numbers; their names were known only to the camp staff. Prisoners "K“They were immediately taken into prison, undressed and sent to the “shower rooms”, located in the basement of the prison next to the crematorium, where they were killed.

During Nuremberg trials Among others, a prisoner of Mauthausen was interrogated - the Spanish photo reporter Francois Bois, who spoke about the life of Russian prisoners in the concentration camp:

“The first prisoners of war arrived in 1941. The arrival of two thousand Russian prisoners of war was announced. The same precautions were taken in relation to them as upon the arrival of Spanish Republican prisoners of war. Machine guns were placed everywhere around the barracks, as the worst was expected from the new arrivals. As soon as the Russian prisoners of war entered the camp, it became clear that they were in a terrible state. They couldn't even understand anything. They were so exhausted that they could not stand on their feet. They were then placed in barracks of 1,600 people each. It should be noted that these barracks were 7 meters wide and 50 meters long. All the clothes of the prisoners were taken away, of which there was already very little. They were only allowed to keep their trousers and shirt, and it was November, and it was more than 10 degrees below zero in Mauthausen. Upon arrival, it turned out that 24 of them had died while they were walking the 4 kilometers that separated the Mauthausen camp from the station. At first they were subjected to the same treatment system as to us Republican Spaniards: at first we were not given any work, but we were given almost nothing to eat. After a few weeks they were completely exhausted, and then a system of extermination began to be applied to them. They were forced to work in the most terrible conditions, beaten with sticks, and mocked. Three months later, out of 7,000 Russian prisoners of war, only 30 remained alive...

There was one so-called 20th barrack. This barracks was located inside the camp, and although there were live wire fences around the entire camp, there was an additional wall around this barracks with live wire fences running along it. In this barracks there were Russian prisoners of war - officers and commissars, several Yugoslavs, French and British. No one could enter this barracks except the commandant of the inner camp and the commandants of the outer camps. The prisoners were dressed like convicts, but they did not have any numbers...

I know in detail what happened in this barracks. It was like a special camp within a camp. There were 1,800 people there who received less than one-quarter of the food ration that the rest of the prisoners received. They had no spoons or plates. They threw spoiled food out of the cauldrons directly into the snow and waited until it began to freeze. Then the Russians were ordered to rush for food. The Russians were so hungry that they fought to eat, and the SS men used this as an excuse to beat them with rubber sticks...”

A separate part of the picture of resistance can be considered the history of Soviet officers and prisoners " Death block", who ended up in this separate barracks in accordance with the fascist operation "Action-K" and were obviously doomed to death. Let's turn to Hans Marszalek's book.

Beingprisonerand a member of the camp resistance, Hans Marszalek wrote a book on the history of the Mauthausen concentration camp:" Die Geschichte des Concentrations lagers Mauthausen" Hans Marsalek. Geschichte des KZ Mauthausen. Linz, 1995. In it he described in great detail and very reliably many various aspects stay of prisoners inconcentration camp. For his work, Hans Marszalek received the title honorary doctors historical sciences Johannes Kepler University in Linz in 2009. This book has gone through many editions. It has been the main work on the history of the concentration camp for many years. Unfortunately, Hans Marszalek's book has never been translated into Russian.

Hans Marszalek writes in the book:

“Prisoners of the block did not have to work, received small food rations irregularly and slept on wooden floors...During the day the prisoners did " physical exercise", walked in single file, crawled, jumped, ran, etc. There was no medical care. Officially, these prisoners were supposed to be shot, they were treated extremely harshly or allowed to starve... The life of a prisoner here was several weeks... During the winter months of 1944/45, 20-30 people, or even more, died every day.”

"Mühlviertel Hunt"

“In January 1945, 17 Soviet officers were sent to the death block, among them were Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Vlasov, Colonel Alexander Issopov, Colonel Kirill Chubchenko and Captain Gennady Mordovtsev...”

They immediately realized the situation they were in and logically concluded that they would suffer the same fate as their predecessors. They knew that the Soviet army was already in Poland and was beginning the battle for the liberation of Budapest in Hungary, that the Allies had crossed the German border, and also that Mauthausen was not very far from the borders of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Naturally, they came to the idea of ​​escaping. Since the concentration camp was located in Austria, and its population was predominantly Catholic, unlike Protestant Germany, the fugitives expected support in their escape. According to the plan, the escape was supposed to take place from January 28 to January 29, 1945. However, on the night of January 27, 25 prisoners of the block, who were in comparatively better physical fitness, were shot by the SS on suspicion of organizing an escape. The rest of the prisoners did not refuse to escape and postponed it to February 2.

In the last minutes before the escape began, one of the old generals, addressing the prisoners, said:

“Many of us will die in the final struggle. But we hope that someone will still return to their homeland. If fate smiles on someone to return home, they must tell their homeland about the fate of their brothers, our grief and struggle »

From the very beginning it was clear to the fugitives that only a few who were lucky and strong enough would not be captured by their pursuers. Therefore, approximately 75 people were left lying naked in the block. They did not have the opportunity to leave the block because they were so weakened that they did not have the strength to rise from the bunks. They gave the clothes to their friends. Some lay down under a 2.5-meter stone wall enclosing the barracks. Live barbed wire was strung over the wall.

The rebelsThey used fire extinguishers as weapons, killed the soldiers of the security post, seized light machine guns, armed themselves with whatever they could, with everything that could be used as a weapon.

After overcoming the fences and crossing a wide field covered with deep snow, many were exhausted.

Others managed to reach the first houses already at the limit of their strength. They believed that they would be fed here. But they did not end up among the residents, but directly into the hands of the SS men, because... One of the first houses was Marbach Castle, where families of SS officers lived. Only a few of this group survived.

The rest walked in small groups, two or three, and managed to cover 5-10, or even 15-20 kilometers. If they had more forces, most of them would be able to escape the first ring of the SS cordon and auxiliary troops. But they had little strength.

The SS leadership tried by all means to apprehend the fugitives. They exposed them as dangerous criminals, murderers and marauders.

“On that day, Franz Ziereis, the camp commandant, gave an order by radio to all citizens to help “liquidate the Russian criminals” who had escaped from the camp.”

The radio reported that “500 dangerous criminals have escaped from the Mauthausen concentration camp. They are extremely dangerous to the population and must be neutralized immediately.”

He announced that whoever proved that he had killed any of these people would receive a large sum in stamps. Therefore, all the Nazi sympathizers in Mauthausen took up this capture, and they managed to kill more than 600 of those who escaped, which, by the way, was not difficult, since some of the Russians could not crawl more than ten meters.”

A daring escape carried out by the weakened prisoners February 2, 1945, stunned not only the concentration camp administration, but also the entire region of Upper Austria. The SS intimidated residents and forced them to participate in the hunt for escaped concentration camp prisoners. Having discovered the weakened fugitives, the SS forced 17-18-year-olds to kill them, in front of the women and children present.

The prisoners caused fear in many residents, so they did not dare to open the door and give food or shelter to those asking for food.

Only a handful of prisoners managed to survive. Three brave Austrian families -Langthaler, Mascherbauer, Wittberger- sheltered and fed the fugitives until liberation. The courage and compassion exceeded the fear of the SS.

Since the SS and the concentration camp commandant Franz Ziereis, who led the search for fugitives, hunted and shot the prisoners like hares, the expression “hare hunting” arose among them. And since this terrible event took place in the Mühlviertel region, in historical memory For the Austrians, this event remained as the “Mühlviertel hare hunt.”

The only monument that tells us about this heroic but sad event is in the town of Ried in Riedmark.

The corpses of fugitives were brought to this city and those caught were counted here. Notches are visible on the monument - the escaped officers were hunted like hares.

Unfortunately, in Russia, few people know about this monument, as well as about the escape...

Liberation

The last prisoner, number 139317, arrived at the camp on May 3, 1945.

The camp “book of death” registered 36 thousand 318 executed; according to other sources, more than 122 thousand people died in Mauthausen.

In total, in the concentration camp - not far from "Hitler's favorite city, which he wanted to eventually turn into the capital of the world" - Linz - 38 thousand Jews and more than 32 thousand Soviet citizens were executed, died from beatings and hunger, as well as from backbreaking labor in the quarries , 30 thousand Poles, Italians, Hungarians, Albanians, Serbs and Croats.

At the beginning of May 1945, the American army approached the Austrian borders from the north, from the German state of Bavaria. When the right flank of the desperately resisting fascist Wehrmacht was overturned across the Danube, the road to the Mauthausen death camp opened. On May 5, 1945, prisoners were taken by American troops Nazi camp Mauthausen's death was released.

In Germany, American and British troops already took part in the liberation of concentration camps, such as Buchenwald or Bergen-Belsen. But what the Americans saw in Mauthausen amazed even such seasoned warriors as General Dwight Eisenhower, the future President of the United States. There were 60 thousand prisoners left in Mauthausen at that time. They told how participants in the anti-fascist struggle, political and military leaders of the countries occupied by the Nazis died in the concentration camp.

Holocaust deniers say the Nazis did not have gas chambers in their arsenal. They claim that the Nazis did not poison the people in them. That all discovered gas chambers are just showers.

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of prisoners of the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1995, Austrian historians Florian Freund and Bertrand Pertz discovered a gas chamber exhaust pipe in one of the caves of the Mauthausen quarry. This “material evidence” indicates that, despite the claims of many modern “browns,” the SS men in the concentration camps were engaged in the mass extermination of people “on an industrial basis.” In almost all the death camps they managed to hide the traces of their crimes against humanity, but in Mauthausen, apparently, in a hurry they failed to hide “the ends in the water.”

Events that took place in the last days before liberation concentration camps, demonstrate the highest degree of consolidation of resistance forces. Through the efforts of the international committee, it was possible to provide the camp prisoners with the necessary necessities in the absence of security, and to prevent massacres and looting. However, the prisoners killed all the capos they found.

Analysis of the last days of life in the camp and the first days after the liberation of the central camp and its branches allows us to talk about high degree organizing an international underground committee to solve emerging problems.

There are quite significant differences in the descriptions of the liberation of the camp. In foreign sources and some domestic ones, the process of liberation is presented as a consistent process of transfer of power from SS men Viennese police and subsequent bloodless liberation by the Americans. And only in domestic sources, mainly dating back to the late 50s and early 60s, the appearance of American tanks is immediately preceded by an armed uprising of prisoners, in which Soviet prisoners played the main role.

Researchers believe that domestic participants in the events, who described the liberation process as an uprising, were placed within a strict political framework Cold War and could not communicate to the general public the priority of the American liberation of the camp. They also believe that many of the given facts of the authors’ own importance as “leaders of the uprising" are a work of fiction.

Coordinates: 48°15?26 s. w. 14°30?06 in. long / 48.25722° north w. 14.50167° E. d. / 48.25722; 14.50167 (G) (O)

Mauthausen. The central "gate" (entrance) in the Gusen concentration camp

Mauthausen (German: KZ Mauthausen) - a German concentration camp near the city of Mauthausen (Mauthausen, Austria) in 1938-1945.

The concentration camp was a system consisting of a central camp and 49 branches scattered throughout the former Austria (Ostmark).

The most famous branches of Mauthausen: Gusen (the largest branch, located 5 kilometers from the central camp, also known as Mauthausen-Gusen (German: Mauthausen-Gusen)), Ebensee (German: Ebensee), Melk (German: Melk).

Story

Creation

On August 7, 1938, prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp were sent to build a new camp in the city of Mauthausen near Linz in Austria. The location of the camp was chosen based on its proximity to the Linz transport hub and the low population density of the site. Although the camp was created from the very beginning as a German state facility, it was founded by a private company as a business enterprise. The owner of the quarries in the Mauthausen area (Marbacher-Bruch and Bettelberg quarries) was the DEST company (an acronym for the full name of Deutsche Erd - und Steinwerke GmbH), headed by Oswald Pohl, who was also a senior rank in the SS. The company, having purchased the quarries from the city authorities of Vienna, began construction of the Mauthausen camp. Granite, which was quarried, was previously used to pave the streets of Vienna, but the architectural concept for rebuilding many German cities required significant quantities of granite.

Funds for the construction of the camp were collected from various sources, including commercial loans from the Dresdner Bank and the Prague Escompte Bank, the so-called Reinhardt Fund (which represented funds stolen from concentration camp victims), and the German Red Cross. Oswald Pohl, the head of DEST, was also the owner of several other companies, was the director and financial manager of various Nazi organizations, and was also the director of the German Red Cross. In 1938 he transferred 8 million Reichsmarks from Red Cross dues to one of the SS accounts, which were then donated to DEST in 1939.

The Mauthausen camp was originally used as a detention center for criminals considered incorrigible, but on May 8, 1939 it was converted into a labor camp for political prisoners.

Concentration camp as a business venture

Percentage of camp prisoners by nationality

The Mauthausen concentration camp system consisted of a central camp and 49 branches scattered throughout Upper Austria. The largest branch was Gusen.

Mauthausen is rightfully considered one of the most terrible concentration camps. The prison regime was terrible. Even its staff, and this is one and a half hundred guards, the Sonderkommando (in the camp that was the name of the crematorium staff) joked that the only way to escape from Mauthausen was through the crematorium pipe.

The camp system was constantly expanding.

In 1944, barracks No. 20 was surrounded by a separate stone wall. This barrack was called the “Death Block”. Mostly Soviet officers were sent there for escapes from prisoner of war camps. "Death Block" was used as a training camp for the training of elite SS units. The prisoners served as “meat” for beatings and abuse. Even later, this practice was introduced throughout the camp. At any time, a detachment of “disciples” could burst into any barracks and kill as many prisoners as they wanted. More than ten people died in the camp every day. If the “norm” was not met, this meant that even greater atrocities awaited the prisoners the next day.

On the night of February 2-3, 1945, Soviet officers carried out a mass escape from the Death Block. All local SS units, the Wehrmacht, the Hitler Youth and the local population were included in the hunt for fugitives. In SS documents this operation was called the “Mühlviertel hare hunt.”

Main branches of the Mauthausen concentration camp

Gusen-1 Gusen-2 Gusen-3 Linz-1 Linz-2 Linz-3 Gunskirchen Melk Ebensee

Concentration camp victims

Monument to General Karbyshev on the territory of the former Mauthausen concentration camp. Memorial plaque at the main gate of the former Mauthausen concentration camp with data on the number of citizens of various countries who died in this camp Memorial plaque "To the Murdered and Silenced Homosexual Victims of National Socialism."

The prisoners of Mauthausen were about 335 thousand people; over 122 thousand people were executed (most of all - over 32 thousand - Soviet citizens; among them, Lieutenant General of the Engineering Troops Dmitry Karbyshev, who on the night of February 18, 1945, along with other prisoners, was doused with water in the cold), and Stalingrader Dmitry Osnovin, who became national hero of Czechoslovakia.

After World War II, a memorial museum was created on the site of Mauthausen. Every day many European schoolchildren visit this museum.

Over 20 national monuments were erected on the territory of the former camp, including a monument to the Soviet Union. Near the main gate of the camp stands a monument to Dmitry Karbyshev. On the pedestal of the monument it is written in Russian and German: “To Dmitry Karbyshev: scientist, warrior, communist. His life and death were a feat in the name of the Motherland.”

At a distance of 100 m from the central camp there was a “revere” (i.e. camp hospital), which was called the “Russian camp”. This camp was built at the end of 1941 by the first Soviet prisoners who arrived in Mauthausen in October 1941. Most of them did not survive the spring of 1942. On the site of the "revere" a stele was erected in memory of Soviet prisoners of war.

Along the so-called “Weeping Wall” ( inner part walls of the camp near the main gate, where newly arrived prisoners usually lined up), there were more than 40 memorial plaques dedicated to individual victims and groups of victims of the camp (ethnic, political, social and religious groups). The first in this row is a memorial plaque dedicated to the heroic death of General Karbyshev. Among the memorial plaques in memory of ethnic groups there are also dedicated to peoples former USSR, in particular - Belarusians. There are plaques in memory of political groups, in particular dedicated to the youth unions of the Austrian Communists and Social Democrats, as well as a plaque in memory of homosexual victims of National Socialism.

In literature

Mikhail Pridonovich Pridonov - autobiographical story “I am a citizen...” (memoirs of a prisoner of Mauthausen). Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov - documentary story “The Last Battle of the Death Row” (tells about block No. 20) Vsevolod Viktorovich Osten - autobiographical story “Rise above your pain: stories of a prisoner of Mauthausen” Jean Laffite - autobiographical story “The Living Are Fighting” Paul-Lou Sulitser - novel “ Green King"

The Mauthausen concentration camp was located 20 kilometers east of Linz, the administrative center of Upper Austria. It was the center of one of the largest camp complexes in Europe. About a hundred more such camps were created in Austria and Southern Germany, but in Mauthausen the conditions were the worst. Mauthausen was one of two “third class” labor camps: “the most incorrigible political enemies of the Reich” were sent there, and many of these people died from the backbreaking labor. The Nazis themselves called this place a meat grinder.

The prisoners worked in a granite quarry, on the edge of which the camp was located. This place was chosen because of the proximity of Linz: Hitler was going to completely rebuild the city according to the plan of Albert Speer, taking advantage of the labor of prisoners.

Several times a day, prisoners were forced to carry stone blocks weighing up to 50 kilograms up 186 steps. Often the prisoners could not stand it and dropped the load - then it rolled down, creating a terrible domino effect: people on the upper steps fell on the lower ones, and those on the next ones, and so on until the foot of the stairs. The stones were pressed down human bodies, arms and legs, and on the stairs every day someone died.

The SS could force the exhausted men to carry the blocks to the top of the stairs. Those who survived the ordeal were lined up on the edge of a cliff - what the guards called the “parachutist wall.” Each prisoner was offered a choice: either he would be shot, or he would push the person standing in front of him into the abyss. Many at this moment jumped from the cliff themselves.

Now a visit to the “death staircase” is included in the tour of the Mathausen memorial. The stairs have been redesigned so that tourists can easily go up and down. In the concentration camp, the stairs were inclined and the steps were sliding.

Today's visitors to the Mauthausen quarry see a different picture than its prisoners: at that time the stairs were not cemented. They were simply steps carved in clay, unequal in size, slippery and practically unsuitable for climbing, much less descending. The prisoners were forced to move very quickly, so many fell and dropped their cargo.

The job consisted of carrying large, heavy blocks up stairs. After that, we still had to walk a long time to the base. If a stone carried by a prisoner seemed too small to the warden, he was shot. And we had to do 8-10 such hikes a day, and not a second of rest.

Christian Bernadeck, French resistance fighter who ended up in Mauthausen, and author of the book "186 Steps"