Nordhausen Concentration Camp

Then and Now

Daniel Taylor

• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781399031257
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Dora-Mittelbau, a Nazi camp, forced thousands into deadly labor for secret weapons, culminating in the horrific Gardelegen massacre where 1, 016 prisoners were killed. In the history of Nazi concentration camps, and particularly labor camps, there is probably noplace that bears the same stigma of wretchedness as 'Dora-Mittelbau' at Nordhausen. Located in theHarz mountains in central Germany, next to a quarry tunnel system in the Kohnstein mountain, itserved to house thousands of slave workers for an underground factory known as the Mittelwerk, which produced three of Germany's best-known secret weapons: the V1 flying bomb, the V2 rocketand jet engines for the Me 262 and Ar 234 fighters. With over 20 kilometers of underground galleries, itwas the largest underground factory in the world. Many of the inmates died in indescribable misery, being forced to extend the tunnels with meager equipment and under ghastly conditions, sometimesnot seeing daylight for weeks on end. Started in August 1943, 'Dora-Mittelbau' in due course becamethe centre of a whole complex of underground factories in the Nordhausen area, with severalsubsidiary camps being set up. In all, of some 60, 000 prisoners sent there between 1943 and 1945, 20, 000 were driven to extinction to implement Nazi Germany's secret weapons program, but theylabored late and in vain, for the products they yielded had little impact on the war. The V1 and V2 arethe only weapons which cost more lives in production than in deployment: far more people died producing them than were killed from their impact in London, Antwerp and elsewhere. The history of Nordhausen, already gruesome in itself, ended in a crescendo of violencewhen, in the final weeks of the war, the surviving inmates were evacuated from the camps in 'deathmarches'. One group of over a thousand men then became victim of one of the most horrendous of allNazi atrocities. On April 13, 1945, just outside the town of Gardelegen, their SS camp guards, helpedby local troops and Hitlerjugend, locked the prisoners in a big barn and set fire to the inside, burningthose inside, killing them with hand-grenades, and shooting anyone who tried to escape from theburning, smoke-filled building. A total of 1, 016 men died as a result. When discovered by Americantroops two days later, Gardelegen quickly became known as the site of one most notorious war crimescommitted by the Nazis. In this book, Karel Margry recounts the history of Nordhausen concentration camp and of theGardelegen massacre in full detail. Both stories are illustrated with unique Then and Now comparisonphotographs.
The book contains the following two stories from ATB magazine: Issue 101: Nordhausen
Author: Karel Margry, 118 black and white photos. Issue 111: The Gardelegen Massacre
Author: Karel Margry, 78 black and white photos.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Book Title
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• NORDHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP
• THE GARDELEGEN MASSACRE
• Back Cover